The Art of Drowning
by Runawaymetaphor
Summary: It has begun to wear on her more, being the highest ranking officer out here. And as much as she loves her job, she doesn't need the added reminder of her burden in settings that have nothing to do with it.
1. Of things eternal

The Art of Drowning

_I wonder how it all got started, this business  
>about seeing your life flash before your eyes<br>while you drown, as if panic, or the act of submergence,  
>could startle time into such compression, crushing<br>decades in the vice of your desperate, final seconds._

_After falling off a steamship or being swept away_  
><em>in a rush of floodwaters, wouldn't you hope<em>  
><em>for a more leisurely review, an invisible hand<em>  
><em>turning the pages of an album of photographs-<em>  
><em>you up on a pony or blowing out candles in a conic hat.<em>

_How about a short animated film, a slide presentation?_  
><em>Your life expressed in an essay, or in one model photograph?<em>  
><em>Wouldn't any form be better than this sudden flash?<em>  
><em>Your whole existence going off in your face<em>  
><em>in an eyebrow-singeing explosion of biography-<em>  
><em>nothing like the three large volumes you envisioned.<em>

_Survivors would have us believe in a brilliance_  
><em>here, some bolt of truth forking across the water,<em>  
><em>an ultimate Light before all the lights go out,<em>  
><em>dawning on you with all its megalithic tonnage.<em>  
><em>But if something does flash before your eyes<em>  
><em>as you go under, it will probably be a fish,<em>

_a quick blur of curved silver darting away,_  
><em>having nothing to do with your life or your death.<em>  
><em>The tide will take you, or the lake will accept it all<em>  
><em>as you sink toward the weedy disarray of the bottom,<em>  
><em>leaving behind what you have already forgotten,<em>  
><em>the surface, now overrun with the high travel of clouds.<em>

Billy Collins, "The Art of Drowning"

**Author's note:** This story assumes the events of "Endgame" never took place and the events of "Drive" and others unraveled, well, a bit differently. The story is J/P, but if you hate C/7, you should be warned there's a fair amount of it in the background.

**Chapter 1: Of things eternal**

As she navigates the corridors of her ship, she silently curses whoever it was that first said there is no rest for the weary.

She fervently hopes, trudging Deck Eight on heavy feet that almost refuse to move, that somewhere, in a dark, festering corner of eternity, that clever person is feeling the prick of a thousand needles. Perhaps the excruciating pain of a dozen Ceti eels burrowing into their brain.

All her reservations about an afterlife be damned.

Turning a corner, Kathryn Janeway exhales heavily. Her ship is yet again low on power, though this time due to a two-week-long problem with the main generator that B'Elanna is (hopefully) only a day from repairing. In the meantime, they've kept power usage to a minimum, including turning off the holodecks and limiting, even further, the use of replicators.

By now, most of the senior staff would be willing to pool their limited rations together, if only to pacify their Captain with one single cup of the caffeinated substance she has gone without for two weeks.

She can still see patient look on the Doctor's face when he'd told her, sitting with her in the mess hall as she ate her dinner, that the time without coffee would do her good.

_It might help you sleep, Kathryn. _

Entering the cargo bay, she wonders how much time it would divert from the generator project if she asked B'Elanna to program their EMH to feel pain. And how long, after that, it would it take Tom to design holographic Ceti eels.

When the doors hiss shut behind her, she's surprised to hear voices. It's almost 02:00, and most of the ship, even during earlier hours, has fallen quiet during the period of power conservation. Rounding a large container of mining supplies, two blonde heads come into her view.

Though there's no music, the two people in front of her are obviously dancing. Most would consider it strange, dancing in the silence of a cargo bay in the wee hours of the morning. But after more than seven years, her crew has learned to do a lot of strange things to keep themselves sane.

"Seven, you're trying to lead again," Tom complains, as he stops mid-step in their waltz.

"I find it difficult to follow your movements without musical accompaniment."

Seven's tone isn't the one of harsh exasperation that would have accompanied such a statement a year earlier. It's softer. Kinder. It acknowledge a certain degree of uncertainty in what she's doing.

"And so, instead of following me, you decided just to start leading yourself?"

Tom's tone, too, is kind. Affectionate even. And abruptly, the Captain wonders what, exactly, is transpiring between the former drone and her chief helmsman these days.

Both of them are currently single; the latter for more than a year following his split from the ship's Chief Engineer, and the former for only a matter of weeks, following her brief relationship with the ship's XO.

Though some distance has asserted itself in Janeway's relationships with both Chakotay and Seven as of late, she has been rather certain that the romance between the two of them would mend.

Looking at Tom and Seven now, she considers the possibility that she was wrong.

"This should not surprise you. You have often informed me that I 'march to the beat of my own drummer.' "

Chuckling, Tom pats Seven's back where his hand rests.

"That I have, my dear. That I have."

The tone of Tom's reply immediately quells whatever questions have sprung to Janeway's mind. He's familiar, but not flirtatious. Affectionate, but in the same manner that he is with Harry Kim and others. As the pair turn and turn in front of her, Seven's movements eventually become less stilted and her strides fall in sync with Paris.

"Have you talked with Chakotay yet?" he asks, tossing the question to his companion as though he has no fear as to how she will receive it.

"I have considered it, as you requested. But I am still uncertain as to what the objective in such a conversation would be."

At the sound of this last exchange, Janeway's body freezes. What she's done so far might or might not be considered spying, but eavesdropping on confidences that Seven no longer shares with her- this is clearly over the line. She backs up to head for the exit. And in her haste, her tired, treacherous feet trip her, sending her into the large container beside her.

As the mining materials clatter to the ground around her and the bin that contained them tumbles against her, she contemplates, for the brief moment that she falls, how merciful it would be if her landing were to knock her unconscious, her body finally finding the blissful state that has eluded her for three straight nights.

Lying sprawled across the floor, her backside and elbows aching but her heard still painfully clear, she silently repeats all the muttered curses and ill wishes that have accrued in her thoughts the last few hours.

"You alright, Captain?" Tom asks, extending a hand to help her.

Looking up at him with a weary face, she accepts the aid.

"I've been better," she responds, as he pulls her to her feet.

It's the kind of thing she wouldn't have admitted not so long ago. But clad in her sleep attire, having been busted spying on two of her officers, she's hard-pressed to put up a façade.

In truth, she doesn't even consider trying.

"I guess we're not the only ones who couldn't sleep."

Tom's expression as he speaks is one of sympathy, but, mercifully, is free of concern. The last thing she needs at the moment is a lecture from the Doctor- or anyone else- about her night-time habits.

"You two often dance in the cargo bay at night?" Janeway asks, wanting to fill the silence when an expression of curiosity takes up residence on Seven's face.

"About as often as you pace here. . . And end up damaging half of _Voyager_'s mining equipment."

The pilot's dig is good-natured and well-deserved.

Still, Janeway adds his spreading smirk to the growing list of things that should be damned for all eternity.

"Care to join us in the place that's. . . less cluttered?" he asks, before the frustration can spread further across his CO's face.

"I wouldn't want to interrupt," she responds, only to watch Tom's eyes survey the mess around them.

She has already interrupted them, they all know. But not even Tom Paris will point this out to her in a coffee-deprived state.

"No interruption," he assures.

She nods in agreement, aiding Tom and Seven as they straighten up what she has thrown into disarray. When they're finished, they exit the cargo bay, making it all the way to the turbolift when Seven stifles a yawn.

"If you're actually tired, you should go rest."

Tom's tone is the same soft one he used only minutes earlier, but Janeway expects Seven to bristle at his suggestion. Despite all the things that have changed about the young woman, she remains as head-strong as they come. It's something Seven has in common with her Captain.

Not the only thing, Janeway mentally adds, cursing herself the second she thinks it.

Leaning against the wall of the turbolift, Seven slumps. Or at least, slumps for Seven of Nine.

"I believe you are correct."

Tom smiles slightly. He, too, expected an argument.

When Seven gets off the lift, Paris calls for Deck Two.

"Hungry?" Janeway asks, her face hovering somewhere between curiosity and amusement.

"Not really. But there's not much to do at the moment other than rummage in the galley or dance in circles." He pauses, eyeing her with a smirk. "And no offense, Kathryn, but you don't exactly seem in dancing shape at the moment."

She shoots him a brief glare, though the look bespeaks her foul mood rather than anger at the use of her first name.

All of her senior staff, save Harry, have begun to occasionally use her first name off-duty. It isn't the norm, even when she's alone with some of the officers she knows best, but it's a slowly emerging shift in their rapport. A change, she realizes with only mild surprise, that she has welcomed with open arms.

It has begun to wear on her more, being the highest ranking officer out here. And as much as she loves her job- despite that she wouldn't trade her ship for the immortality of a Q- she doesn't need the added reminder of her burden in settings that have nothing to do with it.

Tom smiles serenely at her putt-off expression, the same way he would have if Seven had bristled at his suggestion to rest. He respects the woman next to him more than ever, but he no longer runs from her bad moods or sour looks. Month by month, she has become more than his commanding officer. She's his friend. A person who gets tired and has bad days, just like him.

Someone who, right now, looks like complete hell.

Though he glances at her occasionally, he doesn't speak again until they enter the mess hall and he calls for forty percent lights. Following behind him, she doesn't complain about the relative darkness. Despite her inability to sleep, all she wants right now is to crawl into a dimly-lit corner and rest.

She sits down on one of the couches by the wall, watching curiously as Tom approaches the replicator. She suspects he's doing it out of habit or even longing, the way she has, every morning, for the last twelve days.

She's surprised when he punches a command into the device and it whirs with activity. When he turns around, there's a mug in his hands. He hands her the cup of coffee wordlessly, before sitting on the couch beside her.

She doesn't even think to feel guilty that he's donating his meager rations to her and, inhaling the familiar scent, her frustration and fatigue immediately fall away. She takes her first sip with an almost comical reverence that makes her companion smile slightly.

"Tom Paris, you are, at this moment, my favorite person on this ship."

He smile brightens, briefly, before his expression becomes rueful.

"Just don't tell your First Officer that. I'm not exactly high on his own list for that particular honor."

She understands after a few moments what he means. For the last few weeks, there's been a decidedly cold chill drifting from her XO's seat down to the conn. She hadn't understood why, after all these years of relatively warm relations between them, things had settled back into unfriendly feelings.

But watching Tom and Seven in the cargo bay, she'd realized the cause.

Despite that Chakotay had been the one to end things with Seven, it's obvious that he'd done so because he was afraid. And while she's not spoken to her friend about the woman whose presence on _Voyager_ he'd initially challenged, she can imagine the thoughts that are racing through his head when he sees Tom and Seven together.

"We're not sleeping together, you know."

Tom's admission is startling in its frankness and she almost chokes on the hot liquid in her throat.

For all the barriers she's lowered with her crew in the last year, she doesn't speak openly with them about the details of their love lives. Let alone their sex lives.

"I know," she responds, after swallowing, but feel guilty that it's only partly true. Guilty that she, even in passing, assumed that same thing Chakotay did about the pilot's intentions. "I don't suppose you've communicated that to Chakotay, though perhaps with a bit more tact?"

Beside her, he shrugs.

"It isn't my place to make such proclamations." Closing one eye, he adds, "I also think it's good for him to spend some time worrying about her dating someone else."

Immediately, she sees the wisdom in Tom's statement. And the humor.

"I wouldn't have thought you'd be the match-making type," she teases, over the rim of her mug.

"I'm normally not." He pauses, his voice becoming frustrated. "And so help me, if Chakotay gives me one more glare, I may just lock them both in the cargo bay."

Images of the night's earlier calamity springs to mind, and she's surprised that Tom doesn't chance upon a joke first.

"If you do, just be careful of the mining equipment."

His frustration dissolves at her deadpan delivery of the self-deprecating quip. Resting his hand on her forearm and looking at her, he shakes with laughter.

When he stills, she regards the contents of her cup with slight suspicion.

"Do I even want to know how you got the rations for this?"

Her voice isn't accusing, exactly. _Voyager_'s gambling ring has been around for years, and it provides harmlessly amusement for her crew. She has even wagered a few times herself, despite that doing so meant she was indebted to her helmsman for keeping her bets a secret.

"As Captain, no, you wouldn't want to know."

His face is angelic, albeit utterly unconvincing.

"And as Kathryn?" she drawls, a smirk appearing on her lips.

"Ah, well. Kathryn would be impressed. . . Though downright angry, I suspect, that she herself didn't think to wager that exactly thirteen people would report to Sickbay because of Chef Chell's latest foray into the wondrous and familiar world of Leola Root."

Cradling her mug to avoid spilling one precious drop of coffee, she chortles. She can only imagine Tom trying to contain his joy when the poor thirteenth crewmember came trudging into Sickbay, complaining of stomach pain.

"You're right," she agrees. "Kathryn is impressed."

When she takes her next sip of coffee, her face lights up with unadulterated pleasure. After a moment, she looks back at him, her smile now beaming.

"And the Captain is, too, for that matter."

Beside her, he laughs, both of them thinking back to the first time either of them used this distinction.

It had been just before Harry's wedding, three months earlier. The ceremony had been a rushed ordeal, Harry and Jenny Delaney having decided to get married in a matter of days, and after only four months of courtship.

Standing in the small storage area adjacent to the mess hall, looking the picture of decorum in her dress uniform, the Captain had been privately worried. This was the first wedding she'd preformed aboard _Voyager_, and it was a sign of the changing times. People were beginning to pair off, settle down.

Perhaps it was better for her crew's happiness, but what did it mean for her ship's main objective? Would they all be just as driven to get home?

Standing in the same hallway, Tom watched her with an expression of silent amusement before he finally put a hand on her shoulder and handed her a mug.

"Kathryn, stop pacing before you bore a hole in the deck."

The use of first name hadn't even registered to her, as she was too preoccupied with fear. Fear, and the materializing realization that what she'd just sipped was whiskey rather than coffee.

Later, however, she'd deftly taken a seat next to him during the reception, leaning over to him in between toasts.

"That wasn't synthehol, Mister Paris. Does your Captain even _want_ to know how you got your hands on real whiskey?"

"I can say with complete confidence that she does not," Tom replied, without a trace of embarrassment.

She'd smirked at him rather than glowering.

"Will you tell Kathryn then?"

"No," he laughed. "Since I'm pretty sure she talks to the Captain on a regular basis. But feel free to tell both of them that I'm willing to share my private supply any time."

Looking at Tom now, she isn't sure why she hasn't taken him up on his offer yet.

Her Lieutenant isn't the same guarded person he was when she met him. He's no longer hell-bent on proving himself; fragile beneath the cynical, wise-cracking exterior he tried so hard to maintain. The sense of humor and charm are still there, of course. They've just shifted into traits of her officer that she enjoys, rather than defenses she feels the need to disarm.

Their relationship has survived stinging looks of anger and pained expressions of regret. They trust each other, even in the worst of times, and no longer because they are forced by circumstances to do so.

"I miss Neelix."

Tom's words draw her back, suddenly, to the present. When she turns to him, he's peering at the darkened mess hall with sorrow etched across his face.

"I do, too."

The brevity of her response doesn't begin to capture the depth of her sentiment. Entering the mess hall at any hour and not hearing Neelix is a cold reality she knows she'll never get used to. She comes here and somehow still expects to find him, looking at his empty galley the way she now does her darkened replicator.

"He and I had so many really good conservations, at the end."

"There wasn't an end, Tom. You can still talk to him anytime you want."

She isn't sure if she's trying to reassure the man next to her or herself, but either way, she's failing.

"I know," he acknowledges. "But it's not the same thing as coming here late at night and finding him."

She watches his eyes focus on the empty space ahead of them, as though he's trying to remember Neelix there. Chatting away at him, like it's first thing in the morning, rather than some ungodly hour of the night.

"The evening that B'Elanna and I broke up, I talked to Neelix for the longest time. . . I didn't even go to bed. We'd talked all the way through the night, so I just changed my uniform and went straight to my shift."

The nature of the confession surprises her, but she instinctively moves her hand to his arm.

Neither Tom nor B'Elanna speak about the ending of their relationship, but the rumor that Tom had wanted to get married has made its way even to the Captain's ready room.

As surprised that she'd been that their relationship had ended, Kathryn wasn't particularly shocked that Tom had wanted a commitment and B'Elanna had refused. The engineer's tendency to put barriers between herself and the pilot was a very public reality of their relationship, and one that had painfully enfolded in front of crew for three years.

"You know," she begins, her voice light, "I heard B'Elanna yelled at Seven last week for the first time in two years."

Tom snorts. He's heard this particular story, and with far more colorful detail than his Captain.

"It's been nineteen months, to be exact."

"Still," she replies. "It isn't like her, not anymore." She bows her head, her voice lowering. "Maybe Chakotay isn't the only who regrets certain decisions."

He peels his eyes from the room in front of him, regarding her with a look of tempered frustration.

"You assume that she was the one who decided to end things."

Even in the low light, he can see her blush at the gaffe. His frustration is quickly usurped by sympathy.

"Don't feel bad. You weren't the only one to think that."

The consolation makes her feel worse rather than better.

"I guess I thought. . ." Her voice trails off, unable to voice the rumor that, she realizes now, must plague him to this day.

"That I'd proposed?" he asks, his voice slightly bitter. "No. Although I did think about it."

He shakes his head, the cold mask of cynicism she now rarely sees slipping back into place.

"If ever there was rumor that I wish I could take out with a phase rifle."

His voice is filled with a bitterness she knows he uses to cover pain, and she returns her hand to his arm in absence of having a response. The familiar contact helps him shake away the darkest of his thoughts, while others still remain.

"I used to pray to the gods I've never believed in that B'Elanna and I would end up together."

She closes her eyes, understanding his sentiment. She can't even count the silent pleas she's made in the years they've all been out here.

"And now?" she breathes, willing herself to focus her thoughts back to the friend who needs her attention.

"Now I don't even know what I would ask for if I prayed."

The admission summarizes her own sentiments so precisely that it almost causes her physical pain. He feels the rush of breath when she exhales heavily, as well as the slight clenching of her hand before her fingers relax, beginning to tap out a slow rhythm on his arm.

They sit on the couch together for another hour, in the dim light of the mess hall and the looming darkness of their doubts.

. . . . .

As she strolls toward the holodeck, she thinks to herself that this has been a decidedly good week.

She was able to escape from the ship for a few hours yesterday, joining Seven on the Flyer to catalogue mineral samples. No one has attacked them in the last month.

They haven't been short on power (or, at least, they haven't been shorter on power than they normal are) since B'Elanna repaired the problem with _Voyager_'s generator three weeks ago. And just this morning, after one of B'Elanna's staff repaired the replicator in her ready room, she'd got caught up on this week's reports while drinking a cup of steaming coffee.

Heaven in liquid form.

Approaching the location where Tom and Seven now wait for her, she reflects on how nice it's been to spend time with the twosome the last few weeks.

Her rapport with Seven has been strained since the woman's relationship with Chakotay began. And though she'd desperately wanted to mend it, she'd been too plagued with doubts to start. Doubt as to where she now fits into the young woman's life. Doubt as to whether her continued proximity would hinder Seven's development rather than helping it.

Spending time with Seven with the added company of Tom has helped, though she is slow to pinpoint why, exactly. Tom and Seven already have a style of banter, and she recognizes that it would be easy to feel left out. Instead, the few times she's joined them for lunch or else found them in the holodeck, she's felt included.

As though Tom's presence somehow stabilizes her and Seven, his wit and silent ease drawing both of them into conversation, making them feel comfortable.

She takes Seven's invitation to join them today as a sign of progress. A pleasant marker of good things to come.

When she enters the holodeck, she thinks maybe she read the marker wrong.

In front of her is the program of the garage, filled with various twentieth century vehicles, that has become Tom's newest hobby. Sprawled on the floor next to a motorcycle, Tom is clad in a brown leather jacket that was a gift from Seven; a token of apology for her breaking three bones in his foot during a dance lesson one month earlier.

Seven's hair is pulled back in a ponytail, wisps of blonde hair framing a face that looks angry and defiant.

Before Janeway even hears their words, she can tell by Seven's all too familiar expression that she and Tom are arguing. She thinks to leave, suspecting, when they continue on course, that they have failed to notice her entrance.

It quickly becomes clear that that both of them know she's there, but neither, apparently, seem to care.

"If the events of my personal life are adversely affecting you-"

"Stop right there, Seven. I'm not talking about how this is affecting me. This is about how this is affecting you. This is about me worrying about _you_."

"Yet you just described, with minute detail, I believe, the deterioration of your working relationship with the Commander."

Paris looks supremely frustrated with her words, throwing down the crude instrument in his hand with a loud clatter. He closes his eyes, as if praying for patience.

Janeway watches the continuing exchange in silence, looking at the Paris with thinly-masked empathy. He looks at her only briefly before shifting his eyes back to Seven.

"Chakotay," he says, and Seven looks puzzled. "I think its important to use personal designations, rather than rank, when talking about one's romantic life."

Standing over him, Seven bristles.

"Unless you are worried about how this affects your own functioning, I do not believe my refusal to speak with him is any of your concern, Lieutenant."

All three of them know the use of his rank is dig. One of the many things Seven has learned lately is the art of being petty.

Tom glares briefly at her. But then his face softens, his next words coming out in an even voice.

"It's my concern because I care about you. And because I wouldn't be a very good friend if I didn't point out your mistake."

"Why is it," Seven prods, her voice still hostile, "that though I'm told the development of my individuality hinges on my capacity to make my own choices, those who supposedly care about that development are often the first to infringe on my right to make my own decisions?"

The truth of Seven's accusation smacks Janeway harder than it does Paris. While the Captain schools any trace of pain from her features, the Lieutenant visibly deflates.

"You're right," he says, slowly getting up from his position on the floor. "And I'm sorry if I'm been too vocal with my opinions. But Seven. . ."

He pauses, casting his eyes on the cluttered garage as though the words he searches for are scattered among the antique vehicles and rows of obsolete tools.

"This is all we get," he continues, dragging his hand across his brow, his fingers leaving grease stains that will keep the worry lines company. "There's no afterlife waiting for us. No Eden, no Great Forest. We get one fleeting shot at happiness, and then. . ."

His voice trails off, his hands making a small sweeping motion to indicate the finishing of something.

The sentiment he expresses is one that has been articulated by countless artists and philosophers across untold planets, and in far more elegant ways. But it's the expression on his face when he looks at Seven- the open evidence of his own regrets and the gnawing fear of those his friend will take on - that Janeway finds tearing.

Closing her eyes briefly, she fills with gratitude that it is Tom, with his candor and unflappable manner, that has taken Seven under his wing these last few months.

Her anger falling away, Seven regards him with an apprehensive look. It isn't an apology, Kathryn knows, but she's still lost her desire to argue.

When Tom moves past Seven to reach for another tool, he touches the young woman's shoulder. A sign of truce.

Seven smiles slightly. A reciprocation.

Tool in hand, Tom glances at the woman who's joined them but yet to say a word.

"So, Kathryn," he drawls, a rueful smile on his face. "Today you're going to learn about carburetors."

"Carburetors," she repeats, her face serious.

Resuming his seat on the ground, Tom chuckles.

. . . . .

Watching Tom in his crouched position, she hopes that the two of them are wrong and there really is more than the mortal realm.

She hopes that there actually are spirits, or an omniscient being to grant clemency or mercy. An unseen force that organizes the tangled web of fates.

Something, anything, that will decide that this isn't the day Seven of Nine will die.

Her back pressed to the wall of a building in the Xeran capital, Janeway can see the pool of blood rapidly accumulating around Seven's body, ten meters away. Paris, working feverishly to deal with his friend's injuries, seems oblivious to the fire fight going on around him. He ignores the danger to his own life, as Tuvok and Ayala hold off enemy advancement that threatens to overtake the spot, protected by another building, that he and Seven's prone form occupy.

Seven's selfless sacrifice of her own body as a shield for the Xeran leader has assured that _Voyager_ will get its much-needed supplies. But looking at Tom's focused face, his hand that now reaches directly into Seven's chest, she doesn't consider anything beyond saving the lives of her crew and getting the hell off this war-torn planet.

When they materialize in Sickbay minutes later, Seven's heart has already stopped and Tom's hand is the only thing holding the damaged organ together. As soon as the Doctor takes over, pushing him aside, Janeway sees the focused look on Paris' face dissipate, fear settling in on his features.

They both watch, Paris as he assists the Doctor and the Captain standing only two meters away, as the EMH attempts to bring Seven's body back to life.

When he finally succeeds, the operation over, the Doctor regards his assistant with a soft expression.

"You should get some rest, Mister Paris."

Paris nods vacantly, but doesn't move to exit Sickbay. He sits down on an empty bio bed with a thud, his Captain coming to stand beside him.

After all this time, she knows better than to offer him words of praise right now. Instead, she extends a hand to his shoulder, a silent act of support.

Despite the sterilization process, parts of Tom's uniform are still covered with Seven's blood. Beneath her fingers, she can feel the partially-dried evidence of how close they came to losing the woman whose motionless form remains just in front of them.

When Tom finally looks at her, his face is open and filled with fear that's yet to dissipate.

"I prayed," she confesses suddenly.

Later, she'll have no idea why the thought popped into her head, and will even be embarrassed by the admission. But now, looking into Tom's searching blue eyes, she doesn't think to feel self-conscious.

"I didn't," he says, sounding contemplative. "Maybe it's because I didn't think, if there's anything beyond this. . . it would bend its will for me, of all people."

He looks away from her, and the hand on his shoulder tightens. They both shift their eyes to Seven's body, watching as her chest rises and falls over and over.

. . . . .

When Seven wakes for the second time, it is Tom rather than the Doctor who is tending to her vital signs.

"Hey," he murmurs, smiling softly down at his friend.

"I was damaged," she says, a weak attempt at humor.

She has already been informed that her heart stopped for a period of roughly twelve minutes. That she was, technically, dead for some length of time.

Tom forces a smile.

"Let's just say that the Captain probably won't let you volunteer for any away missions in the near future."

Shifting her eyes from Tom's face, Seven sees the two people in the Doctor's office. One of them, she can tell by the voice, is obviously the Captain.

She realizes after her vision clears that the other is Chakotay.

Her hand on Chakotay's shoulder, the Captain glances in the direction of Seven's bed, her eyes meeting her Lieutenant's when she does so.

Slumped in the chair at the Doctor's desk, the Commander does not move. Tom knows, because he has been witnessing his exchange for the last hour, that Chakotay is vacillating between tears and the use of his medicine wheel.

"There was nothing," Seven murmurs, her gaze still on the forms in the office. "I was alive, next to you. . . And then there was nothing."

There's no evidence of surprise in her voice, nor even any trace of pain. Her statement is an acknowledgment. A confirmation of something she already suspected.

Perhaps, too, it's a belated apology.

"Rest," Tom admonishes, and with a deep breath, Seven complies.

Behind the glass of Sickbay's office, Kathryn watches as Seven's eyes flutter shut, followed, briefly, by the fluttering of her pilot's.

Glancing between Chakotay and Tom, she contemplates the many faces of devotion.


	2. Oh, weak mortal flesh

**Chapter 2: Oh, weak mortal flesh**

Looking down at Chell's latest concoction, Tom picks reluctantly at his tray.

He isn't sure if it makes it better or worse, the fact that Chell's cooking is just as unappetizing to human's as Neelix's. Looking at Neelix's empty galley at night, he typically decides better.

Sitting down to lunch, he decides worse.

His lunch companion falling silent, he ventures a look around the room.

Tuvok sits at the next table over, going over the results of their latest security drills with a smattering of his team. Harry and Jenny have just left, the former having patted him on the shoulder with a smile as he followed his wife out.

In the far corner, B'Elanna and Mike Ayala sit alone together, talking in low voices.

That relationship is one Tom never saw coming; the quiet, divorced father of two not seeming B'Elanna's type. But looking at them sitting together, the obvious intimacy, he notes the absence of pain in his stomach. And then feels a wave of relief.

Taking another bite of the brown paste on his tray, he looks to Seven and Chakotay on the opposite side of the room.

The two, not surprisingly, have renewed their relationship since Seven's near fatal injury one month earlier. But this time, Seven is cautious. The last six months have been a tutorial in loss for her. Not only did Chakotay end their relationship without warning, but she lost the Doctor's friendship when things with Chakotay first began.

Even her relationship with the Captain became more distant.

Watching Seven's refusal to meet Chakotay's gaze, Tom feels for both of them. Seven knows now what it feels like to be cast aside, and she's terrified it will happen again. Progress between the two will be slow going for sometime.

Yet, watching Seven get from her table, he feels optimistic for them.

"Can I ask you something?"

Janeway's voice surprises him, and he quickly looks back at her over the table they share.

"Of course, Captain," he says, thinking that the seriousness of her tone denotes ship's business.

She smiles slightly, an indication that her title isn't suitable for the subject matter she's about to bring up. But then the smile falls away entirely, replaced by a worried expression.

"Do you not like my hair longer?"

Pausing his fork in mid-air, he raises his eyebrows at her.

It doesn't seem fitting to call his Captain a vain person. She rarely makes comments out loud on her appearance, after all. And whenever she wears civilian clothes, something she does more frequently now but still not as often as others do, whatever she chooses is simple. Never drawing attention. Not to mention that in the hundreds of times they've been forced to dash into public spaces at a moment's notice due to red alert's and Kahless knows what else, she often arrives on the bridge looking just as much a mess as her officers. The safety of her ship and crew coming before her own shallow concerns.

But Tom isn't an idiot when it comes to women, and over the years he's watched her changing hair lengths and ornate updos that, he knows, must have taken her forever. He's taken note of the toying with lipstick shades and eye makeup that would have been entirely subtle, if he didn't see her face everyday.

He's seen, too, the frustrated looks she occasionally gives her own tired face, catching sight of it in some reflective surface after an especially long shift.

No, his Captain isn't a vain person. But Kathryn is. At least, in the small space that her life and job allow.

Looking at her, he puts down his fork entirely. He knows from having two sisters and too many girlfriends to count that the conversation they are presently starting is deadly serious. Her casual tone not withstanding.

"Why would you say that?" he asks cautiously.

"You've looked at it twice since we sat down. As well as earlier, on the bridge."

She punctuates her words by tucking an errant strand into her ponytail. She has been growing it out the last few weeks, and it's now just long enough that it needs to be pulled back to be regulation.

"I look at you all the time. You're kind of around me a lot. Seeing as how your seat is only a few meters from mine. "

She doesn't appreciate the dodge, and her crossed arms tell him as much. He winces, suspecting her hands would be on her hips if only she were standing up.

"The look you had all three times wasn't an approving one. So I'm curious. Just asking your opinion. . . There's no right or wrong answer."

Over his tray, he regards her evenly, knowing damn well that the last part of her statement is a lie.

There are a thousand wrong answers to her question. And maybe no right answer at all.

"How long are you trying to grow it?"

"Long. Maybe as long as it was five years ago."

She pauses, watching him school his expression.

"Did you not like my hair that long?"

Picking up his fork again as a distraction, Tom contemplates his reply. And the many extra days he could spend pulling shifts in Sickbay if he handles this poorly.

"I liked it long, back then. . . The few times I saw it down, anyway."

At his reply, she stops and then pulls a face. He has, however artfully, communicated a thought she's had herself.

She likes her hair when it's long, but the reality is, she will almost never be able to wear down. She will have to resort once more to harsh buns when on duty. She will spend thirty minutes of her morning trying to tame her hair into something that's appropriate for a Starfleet Captain.

When the conversation falls silent, Tom searches her face, finding contemplation rather than frustration.

Forking more of his unappetizing lunch, he tries to fill his mouth before she can change her mind. Asking him yet another question that puts him in mortal danger.

"So, what's Seven been reading this week?" she asks, after a moment.

He almost sighs with relief at the change of subject.

The last two months, Seven has taken a growing interest in Earth's literature, and both Kathryn and Tom heavily suspect she's processing her feelings about Chakotay along side the literary themes.

Today in Astrometrics, the three of them will go over the bits and pieces of long-range information Starfleet has sent them through the compressed subspace messages they now receive every two weeks. The process is long and full of periods of doing nothing, while Harry works on information to transfer down to them from the the lulls, Kathryn and Tom always chat with Seven about what she's been reading, tackling, separately or together, whatever questions about humanity Seven's reading has given rise to.

The last time they worked together in Astrometrics, Seven was reading _The Grapes of Wrath_ and found herself torn between humanity's twin capacities for cruelty and selfless sacrifice. When Seven fell silent, obviously unswayed by Kathryn's comments about humanity's unending potential for hope and compassion, Tom began, in a low voice, to reflect on being plucked out of the penal colony in Auckland and ending up on _Voyager_.

How the grace of a young Harry Kim's friendship had saved him early on. And how, in turn, that salvation inspired him to save Chakotay's life.

His Captain had watched him speak with unmasked interest. The same way her helmsman watched her the time before that, when Seven had just finished _Moby Dick, _remarking, as though it were obvious, that her Captain's feelings about the Borg closely resembled Ahab's pursuit of his white whale.

Looking at Kathryn over his lunch tray now, he knows she isn't just asking about Seven's reading. She's try to ascertain what kind of afternoon she should expect. Whether their conversation with Seven will end in angry silence or quiet camaraderie.

"Poe," he replies, pushing away his tray.

"Death and insanity," she remarks, smiling a little.

"Right up your alley."

She rolls her eyes as they get to their feet, but he only looks at her with a self-congratulatory smirk in response.

No matter how old Tom gets, he'll never outgrow his occasional over-confidence.

. . . . . .

Walking to Astrometrics, she fights the urge to sigh.

She expected Tom to meet her for lunch today, though she isn't exactly sure why. They never made an appointment to do so, but it has become their habit, especially on days when they'll spend their afternoon going over information with Seven.

She runs a hand through her hair, which now stops a few centimeters below her chin, before turning onto the corridor that will take her to the turbolift.

When she rounds the corner, Tom's head comes into view, and she immediately smiles.

"I missed you at lunch today," she says, standing beside him.

"I'm sorry. I got caught up on something with Harry. Did you survive Chell's Warp Core Chili?"

Something about his tone is off, she can tell, but she decides to let it go.

"Yes. Although I don't know that Chakotay did. I could see him sweating, despite that I was two tables over."

He chuckles at the joke, but it's a forced laugh. This worries her a little more.

Things between the pilot and XO have calmed, the older man having two months back apologized profusely and repeatedly for his behavior and the younger man having graciously accepted.

Despite this, the Captain can still see the Commander's pained expression whenever he looks down at the conn.

Some wounds never really heal, and she understands Chakotay's fear that his lack of trust in Tom has brought back bad memories of the way people used to look at him- the convicted felon, the traitor- when he first came aboard.

Twice now, she has looked at Chakotay and patted the arm next to her chair upon seeing his pained expression. Both times, Chakotay simply dropped his gaze, contemplating the emotion in the blue eyes that remain staring forward, barred from observation.

Seeing Tom shift uncomfortably in front of her, she thinks maybe Chakotay was right to keep on worrying. She steps on the lift, regarding Tom with a hopeful grin.

"So what are we talking about today- death, devotion, jealousy?"

This time, Tom completely freezes, refusing to look at her. Thinking something is decidedly wrong, she calls for the turbolift to stop.

"Tom?" she asks, concern apparent in her voice.

Slowly, he turns to her, and she can see that he isn't hurt or angry. He's nervous. So much that he's tapping his fingers against his thigh the way he does when he's in a tiny, closed off space he finds uncomfortable.

"I told her to read _Madame Bovary_," he says quickly. Almost blurting.

In front of him, her eyes go wide.

"Please tell me you're joking, Tom."

"I'm not. . . I wish I was. But I'm not."

Turning away, she no longer feels concern for him. Rather, she considers trapping him in the lift with his panic until he screams for help.

Even then, she's not sure if she'd let him out.

"Resume lift," she barks.

Speeding toward Astrometrics, she can only imagine the delightful questions Seven is going to have about sexuality, as well as how much the nature of her questions will reveal the exact point of... maturation in her relationship with Chakotay.

She swallows scathing remarks about what else he could have suggested to Seven. Perhaps the writings of the Marquis de Sade. A brief foray into Theopompus' painstaking description of orgies in ancient Greece.

Exiting the lift, she doesn't look at Tom, and he falls silently in step behind her.

He understands why she's angry. He knew she would be. Which is the whole reason he'd spent lunch in Harry's quarters rather than bearing her wrath in the mess hall.

Hiding, like a coward, from a woman who is half his size.

He can't really blame her, either. He knows, with complete clarity, the awkwardness his unthinking suggestion is going to cause them. Especially as Seven has informed him, just this morning, that she has been looking forward to their conversation all week long.

When Seven clicks off the console in front of her after two hours of work, Tom feels the sense of foreboding that he'd felt when they first entered Astrometrics.

"I do not understand infidelity," Seven announces, and her companions quickly glance at each other.

This is not at all what they expected.

"If someone is unhappy with a partner, why not simply end the relationship?"

The question is directed at Tom, so Kathryn allows him to take the lead.

"I think there are a variety of emotions and reasons that accompany the phenomenon of infidelity. Sheer boredom or lust. The feeling of being trapped and not knowing how to get out. Fearing the loss of the current relationship even if it isn't one that's proven satisfactory."

Listening to his impassive tone, Seven narrows her eyes.

"You do not find these reasons compelling?"

He lets go of a deep breath, staring down at the information on his console.

"I understand them. I can explain theme with enough nuance, I guess. . . But no, I don't find them particularly compelling."

"So you have never been unfaithful?"

Seven's tone courts surprise as well as intrigue, and Kathryn sits down in a chair, content to watch the conversation play out without her.

Tom regards his CO with an accusing glance for abandoning him, then shifts his gaze back to the work in front of him.

"I admit that there was a time that I didn't put a lot consideration into monogamy or serious relationships. But despite all my mistakes back then, no, I've never cheated on someone." He adds, putting weight behind his words, "and so help me, Seven, if I look up and you seem surprised by that, you're going to me owe me more than a jacket as an apology."

When Tom finally looks up, Seven has dutifully hidden any trace of her reaction to his words. She looks contemplative, and he can tell she's deciding on another question.

"There are a wide variety of pitfalls in romantic relationships," Seven observes.

"An infinite number," Tom confirms.

"Why brave the risk of failure? Humans are capable of being happy without romantic entanglement. Friends and family members are enough."

They all know that she wants to say 'I am capable of being happy without romantic entanglement,' but doesn't because she's too self-conscious to do so.

For all the confessions she demands of her companions, Seven has become painfully slow to offer her own.

"Like many other risks, it can be worth it. Romantic relationships offer a very different kind of fulfillment than platonic ones."

"Sex."

It's a statement rather than a question. Tom fights off a smirk when the Captain shifts uncomfortably in her chair.

"That," he drawls. "But more importantly, the satisfaction of having someone to spend your life with."

"I have someone to spend my life with," Seven says, looking between Tom and Kathryn. "I have friends. . . I have the two of you."

Kathryn smiles, and Tom tries to put aside his own reaction for Seven's benefit.

"Not the same thing, Sev."

Falling silent once more, Seven regards him with a hesitant expression.

"I am sorry if I am an inadequate substitute for B'Elanna Torres."

The remark takes him completely off-guard, and Kathryn watches as his expression morphs from surprised to pained.

"B'Elanna and I weren't happy in the end, so you don't need to be sorry that we aren't together now."

He taps his console forcefully before continuing.

"But more importantly, you are my friend- not a substitute. I choose to spend time with you because I genuinely want to do so. . . And I expect you to do the same."

Seven eventually nods, turning to her work as the Harry begins to send them new data from the bridge. Once she's occupied, Tom looks to Kathryn, who now stands just beside him.

"That goes for you, too," he whispers, looking at her with a serious expression.

She abruptly flushes with guilt at the remark.

She has been wondering these past few months whether the increased time her pilots spends with her is just because of Seven. Or else, because he is, like herself, a member of the dwindling pool of people on _Voyager_ not engaging their time in romantic relationships.

Beneath her guilt, she feels relief that he understood her doubt and thought to displace it.

She pats his arm in agreement, flashing him a smile before they return to the work in front of them.

. . . . .

Looking around the crowded room, Kathryn contemplates making an escape attempt.

It would be terribly undignified, running for the door; pushing people in the crowded room out of her way as she bolts for the exit. But these days, she's learned to value her comfort a little more and her dignity a little less.

Settling into her seat, she sips the purple concoction that smells like sulfur and burns like rubbing alcohol before pushing it away.

She has always hated bars, even when she was younger. The loud noise, the strangers violating one's personal space. The thinly-veiled attempts to seduce and the open displays of poor behavior.

Only once did ever spend any amount of time in places like this, and it was during a dark period of her life, after suffering the loss of both her farther and the man she'd planned to marry. Bars bring back bad memories for her. They make her uncomfortable rather than putting her at ease. And all she presently wants is to escape from this one, to slip into her robe and curl up on her couch with a cup of coffee and a good book.

Alas, she has promised her crew to join them here. To spend her first evening of shore leave in this crowded place with music so loud it drowns out even her own dreams of undignified retreat.

"Captain," Harry greets, handing her another drink. "Glad you finally made it down to the planet."

Looking at her Ensign, his cheeks already flushed from alcohol, she smiles despite herself.

"Well, I couldn't let that nice room the Letarian Ambassador provided me with go to waste. There's even a replicator."

Harry looks surprised.

"You have a replicator in your room?" he asks incredulously. "We barely have enough to walk around our bed."

"Well, I would like to say that it's one of the many perks of my rank. . . But I'm relatively certain all of the rooms in the building I'm staying in have replicators."

She doesn't think to voice that they also have balconies, with breathtaking views of the ocean Letara's capital looks out on.

"You and Tom have all the luck," Harry comments, smiling at her.

Both of them know it wasn't quite luck. Kathryn was given a room in a nicer building as a gesture of political good will to _Voyager_'s Captain.

And Tom was given a nicer room because a certain Ambassador obviously found him attractive.

"Where is Thomas Eugene? Is he going to grace us with his presence anytime this evening?"

Harry chuckles at the teasing use of Tom's middle name. Only the Captain can get away with it. And even then, Tom usually looks like he's contemplating a way to make her replicator produce only decaffeinated coffee.

"He should be down soon. He's just not the biggest fan of bars. . . And I believe he's also trying to avoid my dear sister-in-law."

The last part doesn't surprise Kathryn. Tom has quickly risen to most eligible bachelor status among the female crew, but (unfortunately for his many admirers) appears to have absolutely no interest in being caught. Megan Delaney is clearly the residing chair of the Tom Paris Adoration Society, and from her- a woman he once briefly pursued- Tom flees faster than from anyone else.

Still, the other part of Harry's statement leaves Kathryn unconvinced.

"Tom? Not a fan of bars? Half of his holoprograms revolve around them."

Harry smiles knowingly. He's had this thought himself once.

"As Tom would point out, holographic bars are entirely different entities than real ones. Especially when you design your own."

Looking around the Letarian watering hole, she can see Tom's point.

She's always had a soft spot for Sandrine's, as well as the bar in Fair Haven, but she thought maybe it was just sentimentality- all of the time there, spent with her crew.

But reflecting on them, she realizes now that the characters Tom programmed lacked the darker social undertones of those in her current environment. The holographic patrons of Sandrine's, however overly familiar and sometimes lecherous, acting more as comic relief. The friendly folk of Fair Haven bringing comfort and effortless companionship.

Neither group palpating with poorly masked pain. Neither refuge feeling like a place where people who are alone go to drown their loneliness.

"Speak of the devil," Harry announces, interrupting her line of thought.

When Tom appears just inside the bar, it's rather obvious he's skeptical. As though he's already having the same thoughts of escape that Kathryn just entertained. Still, he moves forward into the bar, masking his chagrin when immediately met by Megan Delaney and, to Megan's open annoyance, Sarah Jenkins.

"Are you going to go over and save him?" Kathryn asks, after a few moments elapse.

"Oh, I think I'll let him fight his own battles this time."

Watching Tom fail three times at extracting himself, Kathryn contemplates helping him herself. She agrees with Harry that it's funny, but there's only so much of this that she can watch without sympathy.

Seven beats her former mentor to the punch, extracting Tom with words that Kathryn can't make out from her position, but that are, undoubtedly, unceremonious. Leaving the group with the pilot in tow, the blonde woman earns open glares from his former captors.

"I should go find Jenny," Harry comments, as Tom moves to join Seven at her table with Chakotay. "Now that _Voyager_'s Chief Conn officer has been safely rescued from hostile territory."

"Indeed you should," she replies.

As Harry walks away, Kathryn allows herself to watch Tom perch across from the Commander. She hasn't seen her pilot much socially this past month, Seven finally having abandoned her reluctance in regard to Chakotay and retreating almost completely into her romantic relationship.

Looking at Tom now, she isn't sure why she hasn't thought to invite him to dinner or play a game of pool, as it isn't as though Seven was the only driving force behind their time together. She considers him a friend. A close friend even. So why is that she always find herself hoping that he'll ask her to do something rather taking the initiative herself?

It's obvious even from across the room that Chakotay and Seven are having some kind of deep conversation, making overtures to include Tom occasionally, but only by way of being polite. He is, without a doubt, a third wheel. Yet somehow he fails to look awkward.

Like all of them, he's left his uniform behind on the ship. He wears black pants, a white shirt, and the leather jacket that has obviously become his favorite item of clothing.

She always thought the jacket looked slightly silly before, like a costume, when she saw it in the holodeck, surrounded by strange vehicles and obsolete tools. Here, in an alien bar, she thinks the last thing he looks is silly. And kicked back with casual confidence, the sight of him reminds her of one of the ancient films he'd played for the crew sometime earlier.

It was shortly after their hopes of getting home had yet again been dashed (though for the life of her, she can't remember which time now), and the young actor who starred in the film had played an unhappy youth prone to causing trouble. Tom had informed her, before being hushed by someone behind them, both that the actor had died before the movie was released and that he'd originally been from Indiana.

Watching Tom now through the shifting crowd, she feels that same emotion she did whenever she'd turned from him and gone back to watching that film. A profound though inexplicable sense of loss for someone who'd passed from the face of Earth more than four hundred years earlier.

At some point, she realizes that Tom has gotten up from the table, moving to the bar for a change of scenery.

None of _Voyager_'s crew are immediately around him, but he doesn't remain alone for long. After less than a minute of sitting, he is approached by a Letarian woman who whispers something in his ear before draping her arm across the back of his chair.

Watching Tom's shoulders slump in resignation, Kathryn frowns.

Tom is just about to tell his companion that he really isn't in the mood for any company, her very colorful offer aside, when he feels a hand glide confidently up his back.

He freezes.

"There you are," Kathryn purrs, "I've been looking for you everywhere."

She doesn't look at his alien companion, but Kathryn's posture, standing only a centimeter behind Tom, her arm draped over him, is designed to communicate all she needs to. Intimacy. An already staked claim.

With a shrug, the woman moves away. She doesn't really mind taking home a couple, but this one seems to only be interested in each other. Monogamists can be so incredibly boring.

"Have I ever told you that you're my favorite person on the ship?" Tom asks, looking at her with open gratitude.

Kathryn surveys the position of their Letarian friend as she shrugs.

"I'd rather hoped it wouldn't require me propositioning you to earn me that particular honor. But if that's what it takes. . ."

As soon as she says it, she suspects she's crossed a line that will make him uncomfortable. For all their banter, she never makes jokes like this. She lets his quips roll offer, even laughs at his occasional innuendo, while still maintaining appropriateness.

The joke makes him laugh out loud instead, dropping his head onto the bar in front of him before peering back at her over his arm. She sinks into the chair next to him with a self-congratulatory smirk, and he pushes her his drink.

"That's awful," she sputters after sipping it, pushing away the cocktail that tastes like Leola Root and burns like plasma fire.

"It is," he agrees. "But somehow its awfulness is fitting."

He scans their surrounding with open repugnance before sitting back in his chair.

"I hate bars. I used to like them once. . . A long time ago. But now they just remind me of times in my life I'd like to forget."

His admission reminds her of her earlier thoughts, and she nods in agreement.

"You like the ones on the holodeck."

"So do you," he counters.

Looking down at the sickly green liquid in her glass, she begins to smirk again.

"I'm surprised you didn't bring your secret stash of whiskey down with you."

He grins wildly, looking around the bar once more.

"I clearly should have. . . My lack of forethought strikes again."

The comment, which may have been bitter once upon a time, is delivered without a trace of self-consciousness. They both laugh, stilling only when their gazes fall on Seven and Chakotay.

"You must miss her," she says softly.

The comment could seem inappropriate. Seven is in a fulfilling relationship, not dead. Yet to both of them, the sentiment is fitting.

Like Harry, Seven has retreated into the comforts of romantic partnership. The blissful rewards of sharing a life with someone. They're both happy for her, of course. But it leaves them on the outside looking in.

Is this what it would have been like for others, Tom wonders, if he had married B'Elanna? Would Harry have watched, with a mixture of happiness and pain, as he wed and then withdrew into his own private bubble?

"You must miss both of them," he says, not thinking about the implication of his words.

When he looks back at her, she's paled. He places his hand over hers as a silent apology for crossing a boundary he shouldn't have. She looks away from him quickly, ducking her head to sip the liquid both of them find disgusting.

It isn't that Tom's comment has journeyed into areas she doesn't trust him in. Rather, it's that he's crossed into something she herself tries not to examine too closely.

She isn't sure if she ever really loved Chakotay. But she'd like the idea that he loved her.

Liked it far too much than was good for either of them.

"Do want to get out here?" he asks suddenly.

She doesn't hesitate before nodding in agreement, sliding from her chair in one stealth motion.

Outside the air is colder than when they entered, and he can see her body tense with chill out of the corner of his eye. She's clad in only a grey shirt and slacks, not having thought to bring a jacket.

"Talk about lack of foresight," he teases. "You're from Indiana and you didn't think to bring garments for cold weather."

She glares at him as they cross a wide pathway, and as an apology he slips off his jacket to hand to her. She takes it without much thought. He won't be nearly as cold as she is. And even if he is, she thinks it suitable punishment for his sass.

Several minutes into their walk, he realizes she's laughing. He arches an eyebrow at her as they round a building.

"I never would have believed it, eight years ago, if someone told me I'd have to help you fight off unwanted advances from women."

He knows she's right. But he also can't let her taunt go unanswered.

"What you mean to say is that you never would have believed you would be lucky enough to run your hand seductively over your handsome pilot's back."

The retaliatory hand that hits him in the stomach is quick, and she smiles to herself as she hears his loud exhale of breath when it lands.

Eventually, they approach the district where their temporary lodgings are located. Instead of heading for the building, Tom leads them down to the shore, coming to sit on the edge of a wide planter. Several meters from the tides of the alien ocean, they settle close to each other, fending off the cool air and thoughts that have followed them from the bar.

This isn't something they would have done when first found themselves out here, after the Caretaker's array. They wouldn't have felt comfortable, sitting alone on an alien planet, away from the safety their ship affords. They would have been silently holding their breath. Waiting for the next calamity.

At this point, their fear has receded. They are still vigilant, but in the same way people are who grow up in a rough neighborhood. The understood risks becoming the background of a daily pattern of life.

"Why did you break up with B'Elanna?"

Perhaps she has no right to ask the question, but she's been containing it for several months now. His opaque allusion to her feelings for Chakotay having simply pried it loose.

If he's surprised by her frankness, he doesn't show it. He looks out at purplish water that laps gently at pink sand in front of them.

"We'd been having the same fights for months. Maybe even years."

She knows that this is only the beginning of the explanation, but for this alone would have been enough. When she left Earth's orbit to track down Chakotay, she and Mark had been having the same quiet argument for the last year. He wanted to have children. She didn't. At least, not yet.

She wonders, sitting on a beach in the Delta Quadrant, what would have happened if she'd come home from the mission as scheduled. Whether she and Mark would have had the same argument over and over until they finally called off the wedding she'd already postponed two times, each of them filled with anger at the other.

She thinks, too, that she can guess at least one of Tom's arguments with B'Elanna, her Chief Engineer typically looking at Naomi Wildman with the same masked discomfort she herself used to look at children. Back before her own window for having them began to rapidly close before her very eyes.

She always assumed that if it happened for Tom and B'Elanna, B'Elanna would turn out to be happy with motherhood. But she couldn't be expected to appreciate someone telling her that. Just as Tom couldn't be expected to wait.

When she looks back at Tom, he can tell she's been light years away. He smiles at softly rather than looking hurt, and she touches his arm for him to go on.

"During that race with Antarians, we argued. . . She told me that she thought I wasn't serious about our relationship. I tried to tell her that I was- that she was the most important thing to me- but I could tell she didn't believe me."

He looks away from her, watching the Letarian tide beginning to come in as three distant moons rise in the night's sky.

"I mean, there I was, ready to ask her to marry me. And she'd convinced herself our relationship was over."

"It ended then?"

She sounds confused when she asks. She clearly remembers the two of them appearing at several events together afterward.

"No," he explains. "She went back to acting as though none of it had ever happened. . . But I couldn't. . . I ended things two months afterward."

"Do you regret it?"

She wants to take back the question as soon as she asks it, feeling even more frustration with herself than she did back in the bar.

"Not really," he admits, and with seeming ease. "Maybe if we would have gotten married things would have settled down. But I don't particularly think marriage should be approached as a solution to problems."

Her expression expresses agreement, her thoughts once more floating back to Earth and the fiancé she left behind.

"And it's nice to see her with Mike Ayala. She seems. . . content. In a way she never was with me."

There isn't any sadness in his voice when he says it, and she smiles at him. Amazed at how thoroughly caring he can be, even after he's been hurt.

He returns her smile, his gaze slowly drifting toward the zipper of the jacket that's only centimeters away from him.

"What?"

"It's not fair," he remarks, tugging on the bottom the jacket. "It looks even better on you than it does on me."

She chuckles, though more at the ridiculousness of the assertion than anything else. The jacket is several sizes too large for her and fails to cling to her in the flattering way it does to Tom.

"I highly doubt that," she says, her tone betraying her appreciation for the way the article of clothing looks on him.

It's the kind of thing a commanding officer shouldn't say to a subordinate, but neither of them worry about the boundary they're crossing.

It, like their crippling fear, was abandoned a few light years back.

Neither of them will ever be sure what happens next. Who, exactly, is the first to lean in. But either way, they find themselves kissing, Kathryn sitting up she can reach him, and Tom bending down to meet her, his hand moving from the soft leather to the fabric underneath.

When he pulls back, he expects her to once more flush with apology. To pull away or look ashamed. She doesn't. Resting her hand softly on his chest, her finger traces a pattern in his shirt.

He leans down again, deepening the kiss, and before long she's on his lap, her tongue and hands just as insistent as his. When she kisses the side of neck, she can feel his pulse pounding. She hesitates for only a moment before kissing a hot trail back up to his mouth.

Hearing the thud of footsteps in the distance behind them, both of them freeze. No one else from _Voyager_ is staying in this district, but it wouldn't be hard to run into someone here either.

"We shouldn't stay here," he says, his breath hot against her cheek.

She knows that it's an invitation as well as a warning.

Haltingly she rises, throwing a glance over her shoulder before he quickly trails behind her.

Later, she will be amazed that in the two-minute walk to their building, she didn't change her mind. She will realize as well that had they needed to transport back to the ship, passing crewmembers who greeted her by rank, she would have.

But walking the Letara's streets, there is more than enough time for her blood to slow in her veins and rational thought to return to her. She will not be able to blame what transpires on a passing impulse, nor will she able to push it aside because of mitigating circumstances. Neither of them have drank much of anything all evening. And the loneliness that found her earlier in the bar is not what presently drives her, looking back to Tom to make sure he's still behind her.

With a blinding desire that has been slowly building for months, she wants this. Wants Tom. And for all the barriers she's erected over the years, nothing she has left in her has the strength to walk away from it.

As soon as the door of her room closes behind them, her mouth is on his, his hands impatiently tearing at her clothes. They make it to the bed, but only barely, and his mouth quickly follows where his hands leave her skin bare.

"So many freckles," he murmurs, pulling away to look at her in way she finds as agonizing as she does arousing. "Is it like a Trill? Do they go all way down?"

"Only one way to find out," she breathes, her heart pounding in her ears.

Smiling against her, he pulls at her pants. Unable to resist the lure of freckles that remain beneath.


	3. The next breath

**Chapter 3: The next breath**

Sitting behind her desk, she stares blankly at the PADD in front of her. The report it contains summarizing official documents sent and received in the last round of communications with the Alpha Quadrant.

Strategic information. Reports of two first contacts. One promotion. Two commendations.

Three petitions for divorce.

This last transmission brings the total of such petitions to ten and, to date, it is the largest number in a given period; two having been initiated on _Voyager_, and another submitted by a spouse in the Alpha Quadrant.

Gathering her work for the evening, Kathryn worries that this is the inevitable fate of her crew. That no matter how content a life some of them come to lead on _Voyager_, such contentment requires the destruction of past relationships and lives. The decay of marriages; the loss of lovers. The absence of parents from children.

She has decided this week that she was right to worry before Harry's wedding, and wonders if, when they finally get back, her crew will have anything left that can rightly be called 'home'.

At this, she feels immediate guilt for being distracted from her ship's mission. Preoccupied, even momentarily, by . . . other pursuits.

When she makes into to the turbolift, Tuvok comms her, asking if she's spoken to Seven about a report she promised to go over with her.

She hasn't. It's completely slipped her mind. Worse, Seven needs to be briefed before she meets with Tuvok in the morning.

The uncharacteristic lapse makes her mood sink lower, and she calls for a halt to the lift.

"Location of Seven of Nine."

_Seven of Nine is in Holodeck One._

She closes her eyes, not wanting to ask her next question.

"Location of Lieutenant Paris."

_Lieutenant Paris is in Holodeck One._

She lets go of a ragged breath, realizing that this is apparently the way the rest of her night is going to go.

She isn't sure when her desire to avoid Tom first began, but it's sometime around the last wave of subspace messages from home. Before that, things seemed fine. Eerily normal even, despite what transpired between them one month earlier on shore leave.

Since they returned from Letara, there have been no lingering looks on shift. Their bridge banter has continued just as it had before. No more familiar but no less either. Like the first morning she'd woken up next to him on the planet, she's been surprised by the lack of awkwardness between them. Though admittedly, she can't quite compare Tom's polite behavior toward her back on the ship to his conduct that first morning.

She'd fallen asleep next to him full of worry, the night after the beach. Perhaps thinking she would wake up to an empty bed. Or worse, him laying awake next to her, looking regretful.

Instead she awoke, through the haze of her exhaustion, to Tom dragging his mouth over her lower back.

"Are you sleeping Kathryn?" He paused, biting the soft flesh at the base of her back. "Because I suddenly find myself wide awake."

Her eyes had immediately snapped open at the huskiness of his voice. Her breath then hitching in her chest when she felt his body move over hers, his mouth hot against the base of her neck where he moved her hair from her shoulder.

She froze, not moving her face from its position buried in her pillow; deliciously paralyzed by both his proximity and the continued ministrations of his hands on her back, the sides of her breasts.

He took her refusal to move as instruction, pressing himself against her back. And suddenly, pinned between Tom and the bed, her lungs refused to fill with oxygen.

Her head felt dizzy. She buried it deeper into the pillow as though her next breath might be hidden there, trapped in the center of the cushion, as slowly she maneuvered her hips to allow him access.

She'd never really cared before for not being able to see her partner during sex. Likely, it was the lack of control. The fear of distance even in the most intimate of acts.

Feeling Tom's hands on her skin, his mouth kissing her shoulder delicately as she responded to his movements, she couldn't for the life of her remember her hesitancy.

At some point minutes later, she realized the hand that the long fingers that wrapped under torso, cupping her right breast, were trembling. And it was that epiphany that had pushed over the edge; Tom's arms enveloping her further as her body spasmed, her pillow muffling her half-choked sob.

Pushing her fevered memories away as she walks, she tries to tell herself that it was all a mistake. An error. A lapse in judgment that can't happen again.

She tries not to concentrate on the fact that nothing seems to have fallen apart since she slept with her pilot. _Voyager_'s warp core still functioning and the stars streaking by at their usual pace.

No ship-wide emergency has been declared, the Captain having suddenly developed a sex life.

Standing outside of the holodeck, she wonders exactly how long she can remain in the corridor before crewmembers notice and start to think she's lost her mind. And then she feels frustrated with herself, as she's seen Tom countless times in the last few weeks. Each meeting, however public, feeling natural and easy.

How is it that she wasn't terrified before this? Why is it that the two minutes they shared a turbolift the day before seemed too short rather than an eternity? How was she able to sit down next him with such ease at the film he showed the crew a week earlier- that she's managed not bolt from her seat when it turned out be a romance, Tom smiling slightly at her when the redheaded lead actress appeared on screen?

Finally summoning the courage to enter the holodeck of her own ship, she walks into the familiar garage.

Tom is leaned over the open hood of a Studebaker, his face twisted in thought.

"Hey," he greets, belatedly noticing her arrival.

"I was looking for Seven."

She cuts to the chase straight away. Never a good sign with her, he thinks.

"You just missed her. She left to have dinner with Chakotay."

She falls silent, realizing that they're alone. He ignores her pinched expression, wiping his hands on a nearby rag.

"He has a meeting in an hour with Tuvok," he assures. "If you need to talk to Seven, I'm sure she'll be free by then."

With this, he drops their conversation, going back to examining the car. His leans further in to look at the engine in front of him, his shoulders bent under the hood.

Despite herself, she moves toward him, joining him next to the car. The only sound in the room for several moments is that of a car radio, the staticy music echoing faintly in the enclosed space.

"What's wrong?" she asks eventually.

"Head gasket," he replies.

She winces and he shakes his head, reaching up to close the hood.

"Not much I can do about it today."

His expression and tone convey his frustration. The two-door coupe is his favorite. Hers, too.

"You could stop letting Seven drive," she jokes, trying to perk him up.

He chuckles, tossing the rag in his hands over the car to the workbench beyond.

"I don't think even she's capable of doing this much damage."

"Are you sure?"

The seeming seriousness with which she asks it sets him off, and he leans against the car laughing.

Tom has given both Kathryn and Seven driving lessons, his Captain taking to it far more naturally than the former drone. His efforts with the Seven have become as much a tutorial in the art of fluidic cursing as lessons in operating an automobile.

The auxiliary objective has thus far proven far more successful than the main one. Seven can now impressively swear in English and French, but still fails to properly shift from first to second.

"I'm honestly not sure why she doesn't give up," he says, smiling over the Studebaker.

"She's stubborn."

"Hmm. I wonder where she learned that."

She rolls her eyes at the comment, but doesn't dismiss the truth of it. She can't, not entirely.

When they grow quiet again, he looks at her with a searching expression.

"You alright?"

The manner in which he asks it somehow conveys that he isn't just talking about the events she's studiously avoided discussing since they got back from shore leave. He's realized, just by looking at her, that some greater worry occupies her. Something that goes beyond whatever seems to have materialized between them.

"It's been a long week," she admits.

"You wonna talk about it?"

She shakes her head, her face betraying her conflict even as she declines. He knows that if tried again he could probably get something out of her, but he doesn't really think to push.

For all their banter, he understands that Kathryn and the Captain aren't separable. The worries of her job staying with her even standing with him in a garage on the holodeck. A weight she can never quite put down following her here from her ready room.

"Want to go for a ride?" he offers, casting his eyes over the other vehicles that are still in working order.

Looking back him, she's obviously tempted. She shouldn't, part of her knows. But right now, time in an antique vehicle with Tom sounds infinitely more rewarding than the silent doubts that await her in her quarters.

It fails to occur to her that only moments ago, spending time with Tom was a central component of those worries.

She nods, and he heads to the rack of keys by the garage door.

"Do you want to drive?"

She shakes her head, though he can't see the movement with his back to her.

"Not today. . . I just feel like being along for the ride."

"Alright," he calls, over his shoulder. "But tell me which car you want to take."

She pauses, understanding the choice being tossed to her. Wherever they drive is largely dictated by the car they choose, the garage being a fixed program, but what exits beyond resting on Tom's whim.

In the last few months, they have traversed the desserts of Vulcan in sports cars. Navigated the forests of Bajor in a jeep. Even tooled around the back roads of Bloomington in the Studebaker.

It never fails to amuse him that Kathryn's one and only accident occurred on a familiar stretch of land in Indiana. Thankfully, both the Studebaker and her ego survived. The latter with no help from Seven's commentary from the back seat.

She affectionately pats the hood of a blue convertible next to her, and he smiles. The convertible means that she wants to feel sunshine and wind. And in this, he is more than happy to oblige.

"Perfect," he says, tapping at the console next to key rack. "I think I have just the place."

Just outside of the car door, he stops, looking at her hesitantly.

"You may want to change before we go. It's going to be too warm for your uniform."

She doesn't consider the possibility that he's trying to get her out of her uniform as a tactic. She still trusts him implicitly, even when she doesn't quite trust herself.

When she emerges from the back of the garage, she's changed into a pair of brown slacks and a cropped cream colored v-neck. She sits down in the passenger seat, and he hands her a pair of sunglasses. An item of apparel she once found as silly as his leather jacket.

She puts them on without comment, and he opens the garage door.

As the car pulls out, they are enveloped by sunshine and warm air. It doesn't take long to realize he was right about changing; her uniform would be stifling in the heat.

Beyond the road they drive, telephone poles and ocean stretch out as far she can see. She recognizes the area after a few minutes, despite that it's devoid of the automobile and human traffic she last saw it congested with.

"Los Angeles?"

"Hermosa Beach," he confirms. "Shame that we didn't get spend more time there without people trying to kill us."

At the word 'time,' she gives him a pointed stare. He looks back sheepishly, an apology for the unintended pun.

After ten minutes of driving, she relaxes into her seat. She's failed to buckle the safety harness, relying on the holodeck safeties to protect her. She slips down easily into the plush fabric, the only sound around her the noise of the engine and the wind.

At some point she reaches over and turns on the radio, suspecting, correctly, that Tom has programmed music. When he looks over at her, her body is relaxed but her face is pensive.

He turns his attention back to the road, content to let her mull over her thoughts in silence.

Turning off the main road and oto the one that will take them down to the beach, a song comes on that Tom knows. He'd heard it for the first time years ago, when he parked with B'Elanna in a 1957 Chevy on one of their first dates. B'Elanna had scoffed at first at the campy lyrics- the singer's plea for a woman to save her last dance for him. But eventually, she'd come around.

The next time he heard it was three years later, several months after their relationship ended, the meloday playing faintly from a car radio in the garage. When he recognized it, he thought for a moment the car he was working under had collapsed on him. The air being forced from his lungs without his consent, his chest feeling the like a heavy weight was crushing it.

But several months after that, he heard it again, alone in the garage with Seven. She was in poor humor, fresh from one of her first driving lessons, and he sung it to her, without much of any thought except to make her laugh. Eventually she smiled, cajoled into dancing with him in the cluttered space.

Hearing it now, next to Kathryn, the familiar melody fails to cause him any anguish. It still brings back memories, bidden and not. But he feels the same as he does when he sees Mike Ayala in the mess hall.

An absence of pain, and then a sense of relief.

Glancing over at Kathryn once more, he knows that she feels pinned by something she can't get out from under. The weight bearing down on her the way it has before, and for so many years now. But he understands, too, that eventually her present worry won't seem so bleak. She'll crawl out from under it, as she has previously; her chest once more rising and falling with unrestricted ease.

Smiling over at her, he winks. Her contemplative expression falls for a moment, and she smiles back at him, her eyes crinkling at the corners he can see beyond the sunglasses.

"Can we stop somewhere around here?" she asks, a minute later.

"Sure."

Rather than stopping the car on the road, he pulls it directly onto the beach.

When he gets out, he pulls off his shoes and she follows suit.

"I wish this beach still existed," she murmurs, once they have been sitting on the beach for a while.

He digs his toes into the sand in front of him, leaning back on his elbows despite that it means getting sand in his shirt.

"It does," he responds. "It exists here. . . For us."

She watches with curiosity as he lounges on the ancient beach as if he doesn't have a care in the world. As though he's never suffered crushing disappointments or nursed the deep wounds left by lost love. And then she fills with affection that he thinks to share this feeling with her.

When she bends down to kiss him, it's slowly and neither of them close their eyes. He reaches one of his hands to her neck, running his fingers through her hair before pulling her gently down to him.

When he breaks the kiss, both of them are breathless. She rests her face against his chest, unable to meet his eyes just yet.

After a moment, she realizes he's chuckling.

"You know. . . My intentions really were pure, bringing you out here."

"I know," she breathes, angling her face to look at him. "I guess we don't have the best of luck with beaches."

A smug grin breaks out on his lips.

"Oh? I guess I can only speak for myself. . . But I feel pretty lucky at the moment."

She smiles briefly before looking at him with feigned suspicion.

"Are you trying to charm me, Tom Paris?"

"Do I even need to?" he teases. "I mean, even when I don't try, you just start kissing me."

She sits up slightly, her posture mildly defiant.

"_This time _I kissed you. On the first beach, you kissed me."

He takes on an absurd seriousness, realizing this is a real debate.

"I most certainly did not. I mean, I admit I'd been thinking about it. But no way I kissed you first. I was too terrified by the possibility of being transferred permanently to Sickbay- or spending the next year confined to my quarters."

She wants to challenge his contention, but is derailed by the admission included in it.

"You'd been thinking about kissing me?"

"For weeks," he admits.

She searches his face for a moment, and he waits for her to find whatever it is she's looking for.

When she kisses him this time, her mouth is impatient and it takes him a second to match her speed. When he catches up, he flips her onto her back in one deft motion, never breaking contact with her lips.

He's pinned her with his weight and is tracing her collar bone with his mouth when her comm badge chirps.

"Tuvok to Janeway."

She doesn't bolt up or spring away from him. She simply closes her eyes with a frustrated look, and he taps her comm badge for her.

The contact requires him to brush her breast, and she regards him with an arched eyebrow as she responds to the hail.

"Janeway here. What can I do for you, Commander?"

"I thought it prudent to inform you that I have just apprised Seven of Nine myself of the tactical report. You should not concern yourself with finding her this evening."

Tom rests his chin on her stomach as Tuvok speaks, watching her with twinkling eyes.

"Thank you, Tuvok," she responds, managing a patient tone. "That was very considerate of you. Janeway out."

When the line is closed, neither of them makes any move to continue their previous activity. But she remains lying on the sand, and he doesn't shift his body away from her.

"Do you think Tuvok has some kind of tricorder that goes off when someone on board the ship is having too much fun?" he asks, tapping a rhythm on her torso with his index finger.

"Doubtful," she says, closing her eyes again. "I think it just alerts him when _I'm_ having too much fun."

Sitting up, he waggles his eyebrows.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

She smirks back at him but doesn't respond, and slowly they get up from the sand.

When her face takes on a pinched expression as they walk back to the car, he worries her previous mood has returned.

"Tom," she begins, her voice indicating gravity.

He looks at her expectantly, fearing the worst.

"I have sand in my pants."

He chuckles at her, biting his lip to keep from offering aid in getting the particles out.

. . . . .

When Vorick almost catches them kissing in the turbolift, Kathryn becomes convinced that there's something wrong with her.

Certain that there are aliens are tinkering with her brain chemistry, or that she's being telepathically manipulated by some force outside the ship.

Suspicious that Q is somewhere around a corner, giggling at her expense these last six weeks. The omnipotent bastard.

She is Kathryn Elizabeth Janeway. Captain. The fifth in her family to attain said rank. She does not kiss her officers in turbolifts. She does not sleep with them on shore leave, or roll in the sand with them on the holodeck.

And she most certainly does not drop by their quarters on the pretext of work, only to leave the blank PADD she brought with her on a table, neglected for several hours.

She is not this reckless. And she is too old- far too old- to be running around like some hormonal teenager.

"I think something's wrong with me," she announces, as soon as the Sickbay doors behind her.

The Doctor looks at her with surprise as she hops on one of the bio beds, ready for examination.

As much as he values his friendship woman in front of him, she still flees from him when it comes to his professional duties. She puts off routine physicals for weeks, ignores signs of illness or else injury until they have already become crippling.

She does not stroll into Sickbay, unordered, and announce that something is wrong with her.

"What seems to be the problem?" he asks, reaching for a tricorder.

"I don't feel. . . like myself."

He looks at her with concern as well as confusion. This isn't exactly a helpful description, and it isn't like her to be anything but exact.

"What do you mean you don't feel like yourself? Do you think you're having neurological symptoms? Or that you're having strange physical sensations?"

"I don't know," she says pensively, looking down at her dangling feet.

This is even more unlike her. The holographic worry lines that have appeared on the Doctor's face deepen.

"Have you any specific symptoms- difficulty sleeping, mood swings? Do you feel lightheaded or have shortness of breath?"

She bits back the comment that she only has trouble breathing around a certain pilot; her head and all her common sense spinning whenever he touches her, putting his lips against her neck, her stomach, her-

"Captain? Are you alright?"

She realizes that she hasn't responded to his question, and he looks at her with interest as he notes her spike in pulse.

She doesn't bother to reply. Even with her limited medical training, she knows that his medical tricorder will reveal signs of recent sexual activity.

When she hears the sound of the tricorder snap shut, she closes her eyes. Wishing, strangely, that he were about to deliver the opening lecture of the menopause speech she knows damn well he has been rehearsing to himself the last several years.

He puts the tricorder down. A motion, had he a respiratory system, that would be accompanied with a long, low exhale.

When she climbs onto to the bio bed next to her, his holographic feet come into her view, dangling neck to her own enfleshed ones.

"Even from my limited experience, I know first-hand that romantic feelings can be alarming. Even terrifying."

His voice is kind. Patient. She thinks it would be so much better if he were lecturing her.

"But as you have on many occasions reminded me, fear, too, is part of being human."

She still doesn't look at him, and so he falls silent. Patiently waiting for the bravest person he's met to draw the strength to confront her own personal life.

"It's like I've lost all sense of judgment," she confesses, glancing at him. "I'm finding myself doing things that I shouldn't. With someone I shouldn't be doing them with."

Both statements encourage his already piqued interest, and he tries to put aside his curiosity for her sake. At least, for now.

"We've been out here for eight years, Kathryn. I suspect the standards for should and shouldn't aren't exactly as they were when we began. . . Nor should they be."

It occurs to her as he speaks that none of them, none even their holographic Doctor, speak of being in the Delta Quadrant the same way they once did. Phrases like 'stuck here' or 'stranded' have been replaced by vague gestures to their distances. Neutral expressions such as 'out here' decree their predicament neither good nor bad.

A few weeks earlier, the realization would have worried her.

Sitting in Sickbay, thinking about her feelings for Tom, she doesn't know what to worry about anymore.

When she falls silent again, he realizes that he needs to offer her something more. As a physician, as well as a friend.

"Typically," he begins, choosing his words cautiously, "if a patient believes a stimulus is causing an adverse reaction, I recommend staying away from it for a certain amount of time. Seeing if the problem clears up on its own. Or even whether it was the stimulus in question at all."

She nods, thinking it good advice, before getting off the bio bed.

"Kathryn" he calls, after she has thanked him but yet to exit.

She pauses, turning around to face him as the doors swish open in front of her.

"Do I even get a hint who it is?"

She looks at him, mustering a frustrated look that she doesn't at all feel.

"No. And I would advise you not to go conducting research, either."

He scowls at her rather than agreeing. And when she turns from him, she allows herself the smile she has repressed.

. . . . .

Eleven days after talking to the Doctor, she thinks the advice he gave her was garbage. Complete and utter crap.

Vaguely, she recalls the curses she thought when _Voyager _was low on power seven months earlier. And sitting at her desk in her ready room, she tries to string them together again with the same fluidity.

She has distanced herself from Tom at every turn. Avoided places he might go; staying away from the mess hall at lunch and steering clear of the holodecks entirely. She doesn't look at him when he smiles at her. She doesn't linger in turbolifts when they find themselves together, or invite conversation by staying behind after meetings.

And all of her efforts have completely backfired, as now, only meters from her bridge, she thinks of him and nothing else.

When her shift ends, she finds herself going to Tom's deck rather than her own. He left the bridge three hours earlier, and with a small glance at her chair as he got on the lift.

It was a quick look, and their eyes met for only a moment. But she could tell, even in that short exchange, that she's hurt him. The faintest trace of pain appearing in his expression before he pushed it away.

Standing outside his quarters, she tells herself that she owes him an apology. An explanation, however polite and friendly, for avoiding him over the course of the last week and a half.

Her pulse quickens when the doors slide open and he's only centimeters from her, but her heart abruptly stops in her chest when he greets her by rank.

"Captain," he says, awkwardly.

She steps into his quarters without a direct invitation, though he makes no move to block her entry. Once inside, with Tom staring at her, she quickly loses the confidence that has led her to his doorstep.

"Is there something I can do for you?" he asks, going to the replicator to get her a cup of coffee.

His voice isn't cold. But it isn't warm either.

"Tom," she manages, "I came to apologize for. . ."

Her voice trails off, and she runs her hand through her hair, trying to remember what she planned to say

"Running away every time you see me at the other end of a corridor?"

He says it with a smile, but it's a smile that doesn't make it to his eyes.

"Yes," she breathes, looking miserable. "That."

"It's alright," he responds, handing her the coffee cup.

She immediately puts it down rather than drinking it, and he looks at her with curiosity.

"It wasn't about you," she explains. "It was about me. I've had some things on my mind."

He looks at her, waiting for her to go on. But she doesn't. She turns from him, ready to leave, having accomplished her very specific mission.

He watches her with confusion.

"Kathryn, wait."

He catches her wrist as she moves past him. And the second he touches her, she freezes.

He worries at first that he's upset her, stopping her this way. Until she looks up at him, and the charge of energy travels from her body and into his.

She has been imagining his hands on her skin for eleven long days. Has spent ten sleepless nights kicking twisted blankets away from her feet, willing away memories of slick flesh and hot breath. Her thoughts, conscious and unconscious, invaded by echoes of low moans muffled by the other's body.

The remembrance of sharp inhalations, accompanied by the clenching of fingers in sheets.

She's tugging at his jacket the moment she kisses him, her current movements more forceful than either of them have thusfar been with each other. She pushes him back, onto the couch, and he hits the cushion with a thud, grasping at her hips as he half sits half falls.

She moves to straddle his lap immediately, pulling his body flush with hers as she runs her lips hungrily across his mouth, his jaw, his neck. His mouth is just as eager as hers at first, but after a minute, he stops entirely.

When he pushes her upright, forcing space between them, her entire body cries out with need.

"Let's slow down," he manages, his breath ragged and his lips already swollen. "Before this goes any farther. . . again. .. we need to talk."

His voice is serious, although he looks at her with a brief smirk when he says 'again'.

"Talk?" she repeats dully, her fingers still clutching his shirt.

She resists the urge to press her body further into his, grinding her pelvis against his lap. But only barely.

"First we kiss, and then you avoid me for days. And now we're kissing again." He adds, the grin sliding from his face, "I need to know what we're doing here."

He doesn't come right out and ask her what her intentions are- whether she's using him for sex- but the question is written all over his face.

She moves off his lap, recoiling at the implied accusation. She isn't angry. But she is hurt. Guilty, too, that her actions have allowed room for this worry.

"I don't know what we're doing," she confesses. "I've never done this before."

At another time or place, he would make a dirty joke at her statement. Here, however, he worries that all there is between them is friendship and occasionally a romp when she gets bored. Innuendo has lost its charm.

"I understand that," he responds, angling his body to where she now sits. "But I'm not the same person I was a few years ago, and I'm a little too old to just be playing around. . . No matter how enjoyable it's been."

Later, she will darkly amused by the fact that this man, almost a decade her junior, informed her that he's no spring chicken. But presently, she's too hurt by his characterization of their time together to feel anything else.

"We aren't just playing around," she says, her voice slightly rising with indignation.

He glances away from her a moment. When he looks back, it's obvious he doesn't believe her.

"Other than this," he begins, gesturing between them with his hands, "we don't spend time together. And I know that we see each other every day on shift, but that's not quite the same thing."

His voice is even, non accusing. He wants to have a discussion, not an argument.

"We do things together," she retorts, crossing her arms defiantly. "We eat meals together. We spend time on the holodeck."

"Not alone. We eat lunch in the mess hall, surrounded by people. When we spend time together elsewhere it's almost always with Seven or someone else."

"You're worrying because we haven't gone on dates?" she exclaims, her voice rising further. "Tom, I have an exhausting job! And so do you."

He looks at her, obviously unswayed, and she charges on.

"We've known each other for eight years."

"And for seven of those I didn't even call you by your first name. You think I'm just being silly. But there's a reason people go on dates. There's a reason that time alone together is necessary."

She falls quiet, realizing that he has a point, though she can't shake the feeling that he's also wrong. She genuinely thinks their time together over the several months, even if in the company of others, has served some kind of purpose in their relationship.

"You know. . . In some cultures, it's traditional that courtship be supervised by a third party. At least, until a certain period of time elapses."

He narrows his eyes at her.

"What cultures?" he asks suspicously.

"Ancient Ireland, for one."

Her responses befuddles him at first. But then he remembers the film he showed several weeks earlier. The one about the American man who moves to Ireland to flee his own demons, only to fall in love and eventually court a stubborn Irish woman.

"You're using John Wayne against me?"

She doesn't understand the reference, so she remains looking at him defiantly with her arms crossed.

"We're not Irish, Kathryn."

She cocks an eyebrow at him.

They are, both of them, part Irish.

"You know what I mean. We aren't _in_ ancient Ireland."

"Yet the ritual makes sense. At the very least, spending all that time together with Seven allowed us to talk about our feelings- our past failures, our private hopes- without added pressure."

He crosses his arms, mirroring her own position of defiance.

After a moment, his defiance gives way to a rueful expression.

"I should get used to not winning arguments, shouldn't I?"

She smiles, realizing he's conceding. Or at the very least, is offering an olive branch.

She moves back into his lap, wrapping his arms around his neck.

"You should get used to thinking of draws as victories."

He chuckles softly, the sound vibrating against her own body.

"I should have paid more attention to that film," he pouts. "The moral of the story was clearly that redheads are far too much trouble."

"That's not the way I remember the movie," she purrs, kissing his cheek.

"Hmm."

When she draws back her face is serious again, the mirth gone from her eyes. He pushes a lock of hair over her ear, waiting for her to voice whatever worry possesses her now.

"I can't go into this promising much, Tom. It's entirely possible that I won't be able to manage the burdens of being Captain and those of a relationship."

"Is that what this is- a relationship?"

"Of course," she responds quickly, worrying that they've fallen back into the same trap.

"Well, most people in relationships tend to talk to their partner rather than their physician if they have concerns. . . But then I've never dated a Captain before."

She blushes at the realization she's been caught, relieved at least he isn't upset given his teasing tone.

It doesn't take long for anxiety to catch up to her thoughts and her expression.

"Don't worry," he soothes. "The Doc has no clue. And I wouldn't have had any idea what he was after when he peppered me with questions, was I not the. . ."

When he pauses, she knows that he's disqualifying terms one by one that imply guilt. _Culprit. Suspect._

"Lucky man."

Her face twists in thought, her mind turning to what will happen when the crew finds out.

"I don't want to advertise this immediately. I'd prefer to keep things quiet for as long as we can."

She doesn't voice the possibility, beyond all her other worries, that things between them will dissolve as fast as they've materialized. That going public will only make the pain of her failure- her personal failure- that much worse to bear.

Even without the words, he understands.

"You won't get any argument from me on keeping this quiet," he says, looking at her pointedly.

It should be a relief. She expected him to fight her, arguing that they aren't doing anything they should have to hide.

When he agrees, he sees her face fall a bit.

"I'm not ashamed of this," he clarifies quickly, touching her face.

He considers his words as she stares at him, tracing his neck with her finger.

"It's just that my last relationship was more public than I would have liked. . . Everyone knew when B'Elanna and I are started dating. There was practically a ship-wide announcement whenever we fought or made up."

"Seven of Nine studied your mating behavior," she adds, and he favors her with a put off look.

"I could do with some privacy this time," he finishes.

"So then we're agreed," she announces, as though rising from the table in the briefing room, rather than settling further into his lap.

"So what are my orders now?"

The huskiness of his voice alone would be enough to completely undo her, if the twinkling of his eyes didn't give her ideas.

He's remarkably compliant when she pushes him down onto the couch. Even when she strips him of his clothes, she herself retaining her everything but her blouse.

When she moves his hands above his head, pinning them to the cushion, he begins to squirm.

"Kathryn, please," he begs, after she pushes his hands for the third time to the couch. "I want to touch you."

Despite the fact that she has initiated some of their encounters, he has almost always taken the lead and she hasn't minded. She has privately that Tom should teach a course on sex at the Academy. Perhaps a compulsory seminar for the first-year male cadets.

Advanced Anatomy and Sexual Techniques, with Tom Paris.

Hearing his near whimper as he wriggles beneath her, she feels a delicious rush of power.

"You have your orders, Mister Paris," she chides, in her best command voice, before tracing his chest with her tongue.

His hands obediently remain above his head after this, but his legs and arms continue stirring slightly as she touches him.

When her mouth gets to his thigh, his whole body freezes. She stops, looking into his face.

She understands his trepidation. They haven't engaged in this particular activity before, and there's probably been a reason for that. Like the corollary act, it requires a certain kind of trust. But, unlike its counterpart, it also can used to force submissiveness on the bestower. An act that can be as much about subjugation, objectification, as it is about empowerment.

Strange, she thinks, that he is more concerned by the shifting balance of power in this than she is.

She smiles slightly against his leg, realizing that his hesitancy is a little sexy, too.

"Tom?" she asks, looking into his eyes, past his chest that neither rises nor falls.

He, absurdly, wants to laugh or shut his eyes at her implied question. Her chin resting just at the top of his leg, her eyes dilated so much that he can barely see the grey as he looks down at her.

"Engage," he says, letting go of the breath he's been holding.

She smirks against his thigh before resuming course.


	4. The shifting tide

**Chapter 4: The shifting tide **

The first morning that Kathryn wakes up in her own bed with Tom's arm draped over her, she feels a fundamental shift. As if every molecule of the ship beneath her has been transformed by an anomaly or spatial rift.

Listening to the even rhythm of Tom's breathing, she decides that it's time to talk to Chakotay and Tuvok about their relationship. She's been putting it off for two weeks, since the night she barged into Tom's quarters intending to apologize and left the next morning; one half of _Voyager'_s newest couple.

She isn't sure how she's rationalized putting off this long, but she can't wait any longer. Hiding things from either of them is a bad idea, making her feel guilty and anxious. Just as she decides that she'll leave early to talk to Chakotay before her shift, she hears Tom's groggy voice beside her.

"What are you worrying about?"

"I'm not worrying," she assures, cuddling into him.

Tightening his arm around her, he lets go of a sigh.

They both know she isn't telling the truth. But she tries to tell herself that it isn't really a lie if there's no chance that he'll believe her.

"I can't sleep when you lay awake worrying," he says, punctuating his words with a yawn. "So why don't you just be kind to both of us and tell me what it is you're thinking about."

"I'm thinking about you," she says sweetly.

"Not bad," he teases. "But the only reason I'm tempted to believe you is because I'd like to think you aren't worrying even while we're having sex."

"We're not having sex," she points out.

He draws his mouth over her shoulder, pulling her flush against him.

When he rolls them over, his mouth nipping her neck and his hands tugging at her night gown, her last coherent thought is that talking to Chakotay can keep.

. . . . .

"Am I interrupting?" Kathryn asks, poking her head into her First Officer's office.

"Hardly. Come in, I was just about to replicate some lunch."

As Chakotay clears his desk of work, Kathryn settles into the seat across from his.

More and more he plows through lunch doing work in order to free up time to spend with Seven. And though Kathryn misses him in the mess hall or sharing meals as they once did in her ready room, she understands.

Silently, she wonders what sacrifices she'll be able to make in her day in order to spend time with Tom. Not finding many, she begins to worry all over again.

"You alright?" he asks, halfway through lunch. "You've been awfully quiet."

She sets down the fork she's been using to stir her food rather than eat.

"I've just been thinking," she shrugs. "Chakotay. . . there's a reason I came by to see you, and it's something I'm nervous about discussing."

He puts down his own fork, taking in the concerned expression she isn't even trying to hide.

"Kathryn, you know I'm here for you. Whatever you need."

She lets go of a ragged breath, feeling the sudden urge to bury her face in her hands.

"I've been doing something that maybe foolish," she confesses, the ghost of a rueful smile appearing on her face.

The uncharacteristic admission piques his interest as well as his amusement.

"Professionally foolish or personally foolish?"

"Both."

He leans back in his chair, his own smile growing.

"Well, now you really have my undivided attention. What is that you've been doing?"

"I've been. . ."

She closes her eyes when she can't get the words out, opening them only to look at the ceiling, as though her confession is painted there.

"It's just me, Kathryn. You can tell me anything."

She lets out a dry chuckle at this. However true his assurance, it's also laughable for any number of reasons.

"I'm seeing someone," she admits, looking him in the eye.

"Seeing someone," he repeats. "As in. . . dating someone on board the ship?"

She chooses not to roll her eyes, pushing away the wave of frustration she feels. Whatever his present doubt as to the nature of her new relationship, she accepts that it's partly her own choices that have caused it. He's probably worried she's dating another hologram.

"Well, Neelix and I talked, and we both feel a long distance relationship is a bad idea."

He laughs at the joke, even though he's surprised by it.

"I'm sure his new wife will appreciate that," he responds, sipping his tea.

She shrugs, feigning disappointment.

"I guess I could have managed being the other woman. But I drew the line when he sent me a bushel of Leola Root instead of flowers."

As Chakotay chortles into his mug, Kathryn silently congratulates herself. The conversation she's put off for two weeks is now over, and all she must do now is have the same conversation with Tuvok. Likely, without the Neelix jokes.

It's only after Chakotay falls silent for several moments, his dark eyes blinking as they watch her, that she realizes he's waiting for her to tell him who she's dating. Only after he arches an eyebrow at her, his smile fading, that she realizes he has no clue that it's Tom.

She and Tom have been spending so much time together before their relationship even began, she thought it would be obvious. The one revelation naturally leading to the other. Looking at him looking at her, she finds herself floundering all over again.

"It's Tom," she says eventually.

"Tom Paris?"

Despite that his tone doesn't indicate a challenge, she draws herself up in her chair. Daring him with her posture to question the decision. Daring him with her stare to make a remark on the age difference. The one that is dwarfed by the chronological chasm that exists between himself and Seven.

He falls silent, choosing to hide his spreading smirk behind his tea cup.

"What?" she prods, after several moments of silence.

He shrugs, his smile now obvious.

"Nothing. I'm happy for you is all."

She looks at him pointedly, and he bites his lip to keep from laughing at her frustration.

"Tom has a sense of humor and a certain lightness. . . I can see how you would find it attractive given your responsibilities."

"Tom's a very serious person," she counters. "He often uses his sense of humor to hide that."

Chakotay's smile falters. He'd honestly meant the obervation as a compliment, not an insult.

"I know that," he replies slowly. "Moreover, I think Tom is a profoundly honorable man. Most people with his past wouldn't have been able to turn their lives around the way he did. . . He's a trusted officer and I've come to consider him a friend."

"Do you?" she questions, and this completely befuddles him.

"Kathryn, I'm trying to support you, not argue. . . Is it an argument you need?"

"No," she says defensively. Only to deflate when he stares her down with those knowing dark eyes. "I don't know. . . Maybe." She continues, resting her forehead in her hand, "if only for practice. . . before I argue with Tuvok."

At this, he laughs out loud.

"Tuvok may surprise you, you know. I'm convinced there's a romantic hiding below that stoic exterior."

Looking at him across the desk, she pulls a face.

"The last time someone told him that, Tuvok took it as an insult."

"Who in heavens called him a romantic _to his_ _face_?" he asks, putting down his mug.

She pauses for a moment, smiling softly.

"Tom."

"Ah," he murmurs, smirking as though his earlier point has been proven for him.

When they silent once more, her discomfort begins to pool anew.

"You're worried about protocols?" he ventures.

It's a painfully obvious question, but he knows they have to start this conversation somewhere.

"You're not?" she volleys back.

He shakes his head, looking down at the desk.

"You have Tuvok and I to vet any decisions concerning Tom. And even though it goes against fraternization policies, you've noted many times- including in regard my own relationship- that our circumstance seems to provide more than a little leeway." He adds, offhandedly, "if you're really concerned, you can consult Headquarters on the next stream of communications."

She pales visibly at the mention of talking to Command about her relationship, and Chakotay immediately backs them away from this particular nebula.

"That'll come when you're ready," he assures, before trying to lighten the conversation again. "It's not as though they can order you to transfer him."

"No," she replies darkly, "but I could use that particular threat against Tom when I need to. . . Perhaps they'll be another friendly convoy of Talaxians in our future."

Chakotay laughs again, his mirth giving way to a soft expression. He can see just from their brief conversation that the time Kathryn's spent with Paris has done her well. She's more open. More relaxed.

He tries not to linger on this last thought too long.

"Please don't ship him off too quickly," he says, trying to derail his train of thought. "If he goes, that supply of whiskey goes with him. And that would be truly devastating."

"You know about that?" she exclaims, her face morphing into a serious one and her voice dropping an octave when she continues. "Has he told you where he's hiding it?"

Chakotay's eyes glint with mischief. Trust Tom Paris not to share the location of his private stash. Even with the woman he's sleeping with.

"As his direct commanding officer, I don't want to know. And as his friend. . . why would I care where it is as long he keeps sharing it with me?"

She snorts, shaking her head. This is so very far from where they all were eight years ago.

"Good to know you're running a tight ship, Commander."

"I manage to keep everyone sober on shift," he replies, with a crisp nod. "You shouldn't expect miracles beyond that."

She gets up from her chair, realizing that their conversation is only going to degrade further into the silly and the absurd.

"Nice talking to you, Chakotay. . . You were utterly useless, as always."

He bites back his laugh enough to fake a scowl.

"If you would have let me be Captain, you wouldn't have to deal with my failures as a First Officer."

"If I would have let you be Captain, I wouldn't have had to hear all your complaints over the years when I went on away missions. Or else B'Elanna's complaints when you went in my place- to the detriment of our shuttles."

He opens his mouth to respond, but before he can, she's halfway out the door.

"See you the back on the bridge, Commander."

When the door closes after her, he sips his tea with a small shake of his head. Come whatever may, he thinks Kathryn will always be someone who has to have the last word. And going back to the work on his desk, Chakotay feels a slight wave of sympathy for Tom Paris.

. . . . .

"Alright. Out with it, Tom."

As she sits across from Tom in the mess hall, he studiously refuses to look at her. Moving around his helping of Chell's Tuna Salad Surprise as though genuinely trying ascertain the pungent mystery ingredient.

"Out with what?"

He looks up just in time to catch the glare Kathryn tosses him, filling his mouth with a large spoonful of the distasteful casserole. Sitting back in her chair, she waits for him to meticulously chew every bite, pause to sip his water, and then finally swallow. When his mouth is once again unobstructed, she arches an eyebrow at him.

Only moments earlier, Chakotay passed by their table and bid them hello, Kathryn greeting him warmly as Tom gave the man only a curt nod before ducking his head and attending to his tray.

Inwardly, Kathryn had sighed. Things between Tom and Chakotay are genuinely friendly, but when the two men hit a thorny patch, the briar is always the same one these days.

Seven of Nine.

"He's pushing her to begin using her given name," he confesses finally, dropping his eyes again to his tray.

"Really?" she asks, surprised. She hadn't known this.

He nods, his face betraying his frustration.

"She doesn't want to consider it. She thinks going by 'Annika' means casting aside part of her identity. . . But Chakotay keeps pressing her about it."

She falls silent, considering Seven's dilemma. She understands both sides. And though she isn't surprised or hurt that Seven confided in Tom over her, she worries about Seven's tendency to confide in him alone.

Whatever protectiveness Kathryn has tried to abandon concerning the young woman, Tom has picked up in spades. It isn't the kind of thing Kathryn would comment on as his Captain, or perhaps even as his friend. But having transcended both of those designations, she has no choice. Chakotay is her best friend, and the occasional cool breeze she feels drifting between the conn and the Commander's seat puts her squarely in the middle.

At this point, she has had her fill of her lover of three months giving her friend of eight years the silent treatment, and vice versa.

"You're too protective of her," she says gently, raising a hand when he tries to interrupt. "And I know that you want what's best for her- for both of them. But you have to give them the space to work these things out."

She decides not to add that if everyone follows his lead, he's going to have a slew of people, from Chakotay to the Doctor, showing up at his door whenever they have their own skirmishes. Despite her omission, he seems to add the thought for himself, eventually nodding his head in a defeated manner.

"I know," he apologizes. "And I'm trying. But. . ."

As he hesitates, he casts his eyes around the room, eventually resting his gaze on Naomi Wildman. Watching her chatter excitedly to her mother, he smiles wistfully.

"Both of my sisters are several years older," he continues. "And growing up, I always wanted a younger sibling. I guess with Seven . . . even more so than with Harry. . . I feel like I found that."

Having just taken a bite of her own lunch, Kathryn freezes.

Though Tom is only a few years older than Seven, never has she felt the same maternal feelings for the man sitting across from her that she feels for the former drone. Part of it, of course, is just the context of their experiences, Seven becoming a part of Kathryn's life when the younger woman's humanity was barely formed.

Still, she is struck now by how much Seven and Tom even look like alike. The same fair coloring and piercing blue eyes; the high cheekbones and elegant, long limbs. They could even pass as siblings.

When Tom looks up from his tray, Kathryn's fork is still mid air. Her face looking decidedly ill.

"You alright?" he asks, concerned.

She nods, gesturing vaguely.

"That tuna salad will sneak up on you," he warns.

Tucking back into her own lunch, she concentrates on the ominous looking casserole. Hoping her next bite will overpower the bad taste lingering in her mouth.

When Harry drops down beside Tom with a cup of coffee, Kathryn perks up a bit.

"Harry," she greets with a smile

"Captain," the Ensign nods, holding his smile a beat too long. As if he's waiting for her to say something.

She doesn't, dropping her gaze back to her tray instead.

Tom watches the exchange with an inward sigh before reminding Harry about their next holodeck appointment.

"I'm not the one who was late last time," Harry teases, getting up from his seat.

Nothing about Kim's tone indicates that he knows what, exactly, Tom was doing that made him late. But given that the young man does know about his best friend's relationship, Kathryn fights to keep her embarrassment from showing on her face.

"Tell me he doesn't know why you were late," she says in a low voice, once Harry has exited the mess hall. Tom abruptly looking at her with horror at the accusation.

"Give me a little credit," he retorts, picking up both of their trays.

She lets go of the breath she didn't know she was holding, and he shakes his head with a smile as they leave the table.

It isn't until they're alone in a turbolift later, after their shift, that he calls her out about Harry.

"Why don't you ever tell Harry to drop rank when we're alone?"

The question catches her off guard, and she has to work to keep the guilty expression off her face.

"I didn't have to tell you, or the rest of the senior staff. I assume whenever he's ready, it'll come naturally."

As they walk the corridor to his quarters, maintaining a polite distance between them, he shoots her a wary look until his door closes behind them.

"Kathryn, you know he's not going to take the same liberties the rest of us did. He's waiting for your permission. Why don't you ever give it to him?"

He flops down on the couch with an exasperated look, watching her struggle to answer him.

"I don't want to make him feel awkward, Tom."

It's a feeble attempt, and he knows that she knows it. Harry doesn't feel awkward. Desperate maybe, like the kid who's scared he's going to picked last for parrises squares, but not awkward.

"He already knows that we're dating. And despite that he occasionally gives me this strange look- like he can't decide if I'm a god or a con artist- he seems to be dealing with it just fine." He continues, the smile dropping from his face, "Whatever this is, it isn't about Harry. It's about you."

She crosses her arms, irrationally angry that he's pushing her on this. Irrationally angry that he's calling her out the same way she did him at lunch.

"I don't know," she says, and he pulls a face. "It's just that it's . . . _Harry_."

"You love Harry!" he exclaims, throwing his hands wide.

"I know," she mutters, rubbing her face. "That's the point."

When he looks at her, completely baffled, she tries to collect her thoughts enough to explain.

"It's just. . . Harry came to me straight of the Academy. He couldn't even sit down in the same room with me without snapping to attention."

"That's what this is about?" he interrupts, trying to hold back his laughter but failing. "The fact that you don't want to admit that young Harry Kim has grown up? . . . I'm sorry to tell you Captain Janeway, but your baby boy is a married man now and decidedly less green than we were first out here."

"_Do not call him that_," she retorts, stressing each and every word. The last thing she needs are more images of parenthood and maternal feelings swirling in her head, after their conversation at lunch.

He bites his lip, trying to stifle his mirth before she genuinely becomes angry.

"My point is," he begins anew, "Harry has come a long way, just like we all have. And I'm sure, however you fondly remember his enthusiasm, he would appreciate you occasionally treating him as something more than your youngest senior officer."

"You're right," she admits guiltily, sitting on the couch beside him. "It just feels like. . . the end of an era if even Harry drops rank."

He looks at her thoughtfully, the typically resolved face he's been looking at for years once more beset with open worry in front of him.

However much he teases her about Harry, he understands now that she's avoided that particular change because it represents countless others. Some foreseeable. Most not; hidden like the mass of an iceberg, just below the surface.

He leans back on the couch, reaching for her hand.

"Have you evre been to Hawaii?" he asks suddenly.

Thrown off by the change in subjects, she stares at him.

"A few days. . . years ago," she responds, after a moment.

"I love the place," he enthuses. "Someone I knew when I was going through the Academy grew up in Maui, and there were a few weekends that some of us transported home with him. Spent the time surfing and scuba diving. "

He pauses, looking out into his living area as though he's picturing the sand and the surf there.

"The last time I went there, I went out swimming by myself. . . . Looking back now, it was foolish. The tides had been rising the last hour and I shouldn't have gone alone. But I didn't think about it, being young and stupid, and I swam out a long way from the shore."

Sitting next to him, Kathryn realizes with a sinking feeling that this random tangent is going to have a moral. Like one of Chakotay's damn legends. And though Tom's style of storytelling it is entirely different than her best friend's and whatever he imparts is bound to illuminate some hidden truth she's overlooked, right now- just as she would with Chakotay before the big reveal- she finds herself hating him. Just a little.

"What happened?" she asks, tying to feign interest, and he smiles slightly before schooling his features.

"Well, about halfway to where I wanted to swim, I got caught in a riptide." He hesitates, genuine discomfort appearing on his face at the memory. "I'd never experienced anything like it. . . It was terrifying. I went under a few times trying to fight it."

"And then?" she asks earnestly, pulled in by his obvious emotion.

"After about a minute rational thought kicked in, and I stopped swimming directly against it. Had the sense to start moving along the coastline instead." He drops his voice, giving her a pointed look as he concludes, "you wouldn't believe how many people drown out there, trying to swim against the tide because of their panic."

With a heavy breath, she slouches into the couch, both of them falling silent.

"I take back everything I said earlier about wanting you to be nice to Chakotay," she says eventually.

He smiles slightly at her petulance.

"Strange. I just came to the conclusion that he and I make a great team when it comes it annoying you."

She shoots him a frustrated look she doesn't genuinely feel, and his smile spreads as he moves closer to her, kissing her neck.

"Of course," he begins slyly, running a hand up her stomach, "I have ways of making my annoyance up to you."

"I don't know," she drawls, trying to keep her breathing even when he traces a path from her navel to her chest with his index finger. "You're far more frustrating than Chakotay could ever hope to be."

"Completely obnoxious," he agrees, his finger circling her breast.

"Infuriating," she gasps, her nipple being drawn to attention by a knowing touch.

"As obstinate as my captain," he counters, pulling her face to his.

Kathryn's last retort dies on her lips, her mouth covered with Tom's.

. . . . .

It's four months before they have their first real argument.

Before that, she holds her breath, expecting the constant bickering that punctuated his relationship with B'Elanna, but that doesn't ever materialize.

Tom's moods are relatively predictable, and even when he's had a long or tiring day, he takes comfort in her company. Sitting next to her on the couch in one of their quarters, or else finding solace in a quiet dinner. And when she's in a bad mood, he tries to sooth her, bearing her ill temper, as well as her lack of patience.

When the first argument finally comes, they are both in poor humor. But the blow up is, without question, her fault.

"How was your time with Harry?" she asks, not looking up from the report she's reading when he enters her quarters.

"Fine," he says dismissively, tossing his leather jacket on the couch in a way that betrays frustration.

She notes the unusual humor, but doesn't ask any questions. She's had a long day of her own and isn't really in the mood to hear him complain about his.

When he emerges from her bathroom, she still hasn't replicated anything, despite that she invited him for dinner.

"What are you in the mood for?" he asks, moving to the replicator.

"I don't care," she says, and he looks at her questioningly. "Just pick something, Tom."

The reply carries an unwarranted edge, but he bites back any retort, selecting something she's previously expressed a fondness for.

"Did you use the garage program without me?" he asks casually, a few minutes into dinner.

"Yesterday," she confirms. "I look Chakotay out in the Studebaker."

His brow furrows as he works on his plate, but she again ignores it, going back to scanning her PADD.

"Kathryn," he sighs. "Put the work down at least until we finish eating."

"I am finished," she shrugs.

He stops, putting his fork down and looking at her evenly.

"Is my being here bothering you?" he asks earnestly. "Because I'm getting the decided impression you'd rather be alone."

"You're the one who walked here in a bad mood," she remarks, favoring him with a brief patronizing look over her PADD.

"I did. And I'm sorry for that. But I've been trying since then. . . Which is more than I can say for you."

"It's been a long day for me, too," she points out without apology. "And tomorrow's going to be even longer if I don't finish reading this. So you can go, or you can stay. But either way, you need to let me do work."

Looking at her, Tom can't decide what irritates him more; her words, the fact that she's using her command voice, or the idea that she isn't putting down the PADD she's reading even while they argue. After a moment, he decides that it's the second one.

"Don't do that, Kathryn," he warns.

"What?"

"Order me. As though we're on the bridge rather than in private."

"Look, Lieutenant, you may have the convenience of walking away from the pilot's seat and being free and clear of work, but I don't have the same luxury. Nor do I have the time to nurse your ego every time I'm unable to give you my undivided attention."

"Lieutenant?" he asks, feeling the anger he's been holding back starting to color his cheeks.

She fails to acknowledge his rising agitation, going back to her work as though they've just concluded a meeting in her ready room.

When he gets up from the table and leaves, it's because he no longer desire to be near her, rather than because she has essentially dismissed him with her posture.

Later that night, she regrets her behavior, but doesn't comm him. Thinking perhaps she should give him the night to cool off. It's a thought that seems to be proven correct the next morning, Tom appearing in his usual cheer on the bridge; bantering with her, ribbing Tuvok and Chakotay.

It isn't until the end of their shift, having hidden away in ready room to do work during lunch, that she realizes he's still angry. They're on the turbolift with Chakotay and Harry, but the moment the two men step off, Tom falls eerily quiet, his face looking suddenly taut.

When the lift opens on her deck, his doesn't look at her, standing with his hands behind his back and his spine rigid. A meter into the corridor, she turns around and gives him a questioning look.

The last thing she sees before the door closes again is Tom averting his eyes from her, pain and anger etched across his face.

Walking to her door, she feels pressure build behind her eyes. Tom's behavior on the bridge, she realizes now, was only an act to spare their privacy. He hadn't wanted to broadcast their relationship, let alone their falling out.

Entering her living area, she stands in the center of the room. Trying to push away the feeling that it's never looked as empty as it does now.

. . . . .

Rising from her bed, she kicks off the tangled mass of blankets that bunch at her feet. Sleep has not found her, and her bed has been paying the price for the last three hours.

Changing into her uniform slacks and turtleneck, she decides to do something active. Anything, really, to get out of her quarters. Her empty quarters.

It's been six day since her fight with Tom. Six nights of sleeping alone in her bed, and waking up with only her cold sheets for company. The first two days she spent working the courage to apologize. But the last four she's spent worrying that even if she can fix this problem, another is sure to spring up in its place.

She's out of practice at relationship. And if she's honest with herself, she's never made them a priority in her life.

For a quarter of an hour, she allows herself to stroll the decks. But then she becomes nervous that the sight of the Captain roaming the ship at odd hours will cause ship chatter to increase, and she decides to find a quiet corner somewhere. She is terribly sensitive, one might even say downright paranoid, about the level of ship's chatter these days.

Heading to deck ten, she decides she'll help out repair efforts on the shuttle bay. The bay door has been refusing to respond to commands from the computer with any consistency, but every time B'Elanna gets ready to send a repair team down, they're diverted by some emerging catastrophe.

The last time Pablo Baytart attempted to take the Flyer out, the Ensign watched helplessly for twenty minutes while the bay door opened and closed in front of him. Informing her on the bridge of Baytart's ordeal, two weeks earlier, Chakotay had glanced down with silent amusement as Tom tried to stifle his own laughter.

"Why don't you like him?" she'd asked Tom later that night, over dinner.

"Who?"

"Ensign Baytart."

"Why do you think I don't like him?"

She gave him an eye roll as response.

As civil as Tom has always been to his fellow pilot, it had become obvious to her long ago that he didn't care for the man personally. The Chief Conn Officer always finding a way of ending up on the opposite side of the room from the Ensign at social gatherings.

"Are you sure you want to know?" he asked, scratching his face.

She only laughed at his apparent seriousness. They'd been doing a good job of finding a line between the professional and the personal, but there was still a dwindling number of secrets between them. His reasons for not caring for Baytart didn't seem to be worth shielding.

"He hates Harry," he confessed finally.

"What?" she asked, convinced that she'd missed something

"He hates Harry," he repeated, gesturing wildly. "Can you believe it? I mean, I can see not liking me or B'Elanna. Maybe even Chakotay or Tuvok. But _Harry_? What has Harry Kim ever done to anybody?"

Going back to their dinner, she'd decided he was right to question the line of conversation. She couldn't imagine ever looking at Pablo Baytart the same way again.

Entering the shuttle bay now, Kathryn rubs her hand wearily across her eyes. Starting to fear that no corner of her ship is free of some memory of Tom.

Approaching one of the bay's computer consoles, she takes note of a repair kit lying out in the open and puzzles over it. It's strange for Torres' staff to leave equipment of any kind around, as failing to put things back in the right place is one of their boss' biggest pet peeves.

She lets out a ragged breath as this thought, too, reminds of her Tom. Knowing by now that his sloppiness was something he and the engineer frequently argued about when they were together.

She realizes now, with a sense of dark sarcasm, that it was silly to leave her quarters in the hopes of putting her thoughts behind her. They've simply followed her down the seven decks. Crowding her here, in the wide open space of the shuttle bay.

She's so deep enough in thought that she doesn't hear B'Elanna behind her until the woman's hand is on her shoulder.

"Captain," B'Elanna says with surprise, watching as the redheaded woman almost jumps out of her skin.

Calming the surge of energy that courses through her body, Janeway looks at her Chief Engineer with a tinge of embarrassment.

"I'm sorry, B'Elanna. I didn't hear you."

The Klingon looks at her quizzically, before shifting her focus back to the panel in front of her.

"It's alright. I was surprised to see you as well."

The younger woman squats down to remove the front of the console, peering into it with ominous expression. As though she scare the bay door into cooperating with her.

Kathryn says nothing, content to watch as B'Elanna assess the problem in front of her.

"Couldn't sleep?"

B'Elanna's voice is distorted by the panel her head is in, but Kathryn can still make out the tone. A casual one meant to convey disinterest. A disinterest Kathryn knows she almost certainly doesn't feel.

Officially, only Harry, Seven, Chakotay and Tuvok know she and Tom have been dating. But unofficially, she is certain the Doctor has figured it out, and the rest of the crew are starting to put two and two together.

Watching B'Elanna work, Kathryn feels regret that neither she nor Tom informed her personally. But as the engineer's relationship with the pilot has been over for some time, Tom had been understandably hesitant.

"I don't want her to find out from someone else," he'd said, tinkering with a motor cycle in the garage. "But I also don't want to feel as though I'm trying to advertise it in a hurtful way."

She wonders if now it's a moot anyway. Her own relationship with the pilot possibly being over only months after it began.

"Something like that," Kathryn replies, adopting the same casual tone.

Inside the panel, Kathryn hears B'Elanna exhale heavily. Whatever the problem is, it's worse than the engineer assumed it to be.

"I know the feeling," the engineer confesses, her tone dripping with frustration as well as exhaustion. "It's been a long time since I slept through the night."

The way B'Elanna says this part surprises Kathryn, her candor unexpected. It's no secret that Ayala and Torres have decided to cool their heals. And though Chakotay has been convinced that it's only a temporary break, Kathryn doesn't know the couple well enough to form a hypothesis either way.

Looking at B'Elanna now, her shoulders sagging with fatigue and her lips pressed into a hard line, Kathryn decides it doesn't matter. Being alone again is difficult regardless of how long the loneliness lasts.

Sitting beside B'Elanna on the ground, Kathryn pulls the repair kit toward her.

"How bad is it?

"Worse than I hoped. I'm going to have to manually sync the command relays."

Rummaging through the kit, Kathryn hands her a hyper-spanner. The engineer takes it wordlessly, peering back into the console.

They fall into companionable silence, and Kathryn tries not to think too hard about the fact that of all the people, she's ended up sheltering a sleepless night with this woman.

"I made a lot of mistakes with Tom," B'Elanna announces, after a few minutes and her head still in the console that blocks from view her Captain's look of surprise at the sudden proclamation. "There are a lot of things, if I had them to do over again, that I would do differently. A lot of things I wished I'd know then."

Handing back the hyper-spanner to Kathryn, their eyes meet and B'Elanna looks rueful.

"It's easy to take him for granted, even when you're trying not to."

Kathryn is sure B'Elanna's use of the ambiguous pronoun is deliberate, and she feels her stomach churn as she hands the woman another tool. Still, she doesn't protest the line of conversation. Waiting as the usually guarded woman barrels on.

"He's quick to take on the needs of others," Torres continues, climbing again into the console. "Slow to vocalize his own." She pauses, sighing. "When you come home, tired and frustrated after a long day, it's easy to take it out on him. To let him take on the burden of your anger and resentment."

Had B'Elanna volunteered this information days earlier, Kathryn would have listened with a patient expression, inwardly vacillating between sympathy and the slightly smug comfort that she would succeed where the other had failed. But having slept alone for almost a week, Kathryn feels only a foreboding feeling at the younger woman's words.

She rummages for another tool, listening quietly as the engineer continues her monologue.

"At the end of the day though, he isn't moody or particularly complicated. There are things that always make him smile. Things that, no matter how well he hides it, always bother him."

"Such as?" Kathryn prods gently.

B'Elanna, mercifully, doesn't pull her head out of her work long enough to stare at after she asks the question.

"Nothing means more to him than when you put aside your work to spend time with him," B'Elanna replies. "He'll almost never ask or expect it. But when you do it, he'll be happier than any bowl of tomato soup could make him."

At this, Kathryn smiles slightly, handing B'Elanna another tool.

"He doesn't like it- no, he _hates_ it- when people tinker with his possessions without permission. Especially when things get moved or rearranged."

Cringing, Kathryn reflects back on the bad mood Tom was in when he came for dinner the night of their argument. He'd just come from the taking a drive with Seven, and Kathryn hadn't thought to change the mirrors or seat position in the Studebaker after she last ran the garage program with Chakotay. Worse, she didn't even ask Tom if it was okay to bring Chakotay there.

She closes her eyes, remembering that Tom even asked her about it and she'd simply dismissed him out of hand.

B'Elanna emerges yet again, wiping her hand across face and leaving behind streaks of conduit lubricant that keep her frown lines company as she shakes her head.

"I think it's because of the way he grew up," the engineer theorizes. "His parents weren't very good about respecting his privacy, especially his bedroom."

The two women replace the console's cover, and Kathryn thinks for a second they have finished their strange confessional, the younger woman falling silent. After a moment, the engineer's face twists in thought, as though she's still assessing a problem.

"At some point, he's going to offer to cancel plans with Harry for you, and it won't seem like it's a big deal at all." She pauses, holding up her hand in caution. "_Don't let him_. Time with Harry balances him out in a way I didn't appreciate for a long time. If you let him skip it, he won't be himself again for week. He'll be irritable, grouchy; even the Doctor will notice."

They stand up, and, smiling wistfully, Kathryn inputs a command into the shuttle bay's computer. Within a second, the bay door glides open, gliding shut when she taps the screen again.

"Nicely done," Kathryn announces, still looking at the bay doors.

"Not too bad for a sleepless night's work," B'Elanna agrees. "Thanks for the help."

Kathryn gives her a soft look.

"You, too, B'Elanna. . . Try to get some sleep."

"Let's hope sleep finds both of us, Kathryn."

. . . . . .

After allowing herself the freedom to wander the corridors of the ship for an hour, Kathryn finds herself outside of Tom's quarters.

It's after 01:00, and Tom is undoubtedly asleep. But all she can think about after talking to B'Elanna is her longing for the man on the other side of the wall.

She enters his code without any real guilt. He gave it to her over a month ago, but she's never used it. Afraid, perhaps, of what it means if she begins to linger in his private space without him.

Afraid that it would mean he would seek to linger in her private space without her.

Coming into his quarters, she manually calls for twenty percent lights. Just enough illumination to reveal Tom's sleeping form in his bed, face down, limbs splayed out. The blankets lay discarded at his feet, evidence of his own fitful rest, and he sleeps only in a pair of shorts.

Tom is someone who radiates heat in his sleep, and Kathryn has more than once found it stifling when he pulled her close at night, enveloping her in his warmth. Looking at his muscled legs and the elegant line of his back, all she can think now is that she could desperately use a little stifling. And stripping herself of all of her clothes, she crawls into bed with him.

She isn't sure what she wants exactly, as it isn't lust that drives her. She doesn't even really mean to wake him up. But before she knows it, she's pressing herself into his back, burying her face between his shoulder blades with enough force to make him stir.

It takes him a minute to come to, but once he does, he's completely alert. Keenly aware of the woman in his bed and the bare breasts pressed against his own skin.

"If you're ready to apologize, I'm happy to accept. . . But I'm afraid I'm going to require words."

His voice is even, the sound muffled by his pillow. She buries her face deeper into his back, her cheeks flushing with delayed embarrassment. Not just about the argument she caused, or the fact she's snuck into his quarters and disrobed. But that she has, once again, tried to slip into his bed without so much as a conversation.

When she feels him stir beneath her, she shifts her body only enough to allow him the space to turn over, the front of her naked body coming flush with his barely clothed one.

"I'm sorry," she breathes, resting her face on his chest. "I don't know what happened. . . I think. . . I've gotten a little too used to giving orders."

Wrapping his arms around her, he reflects on the confession. It isn't anything he didn't already know, but hearing her admit it is different.

She doesn't just give orders, but hides behind them. Masking her fear of the things she can't control with her attempts to dominate the things she can.

"It's okay to be afraid," he soothes. "But you can't cling to the way things have always been just because of your fear. If you did before, our relationship wouldn't exist. . . You would have never given me the chance to fall in love with you."

Remaining silent, she shuts her eyes. Unable to speak for fear that the only thing that will escape her mouth is a sob. It's the first time that Tom's said he loved her.

When she presses into his body further, he somehow understands what she needs. And slowly, he flips them over, covering her body with his own weight. She doesn't complain about the burden, wrapping her arms around his back and pulling him flush against her. As if she's trying to sink into his core, his familiar heat surrounding her once more.

It's minutes before either of them move, but eventually she pulls slowly at the thin layer of fabric that clothes his growing arousal. Once the offending garment is removed, his limbs fall still again as he nuzzles her neck and leaves the phantom of a kiss at its base.

"Tom," she murmurs, tracing his back with one hand and threading the fingers of the other through his hair.

He ignores the cue at first, allowing his erection to press against her thigh, even when her hips stir in invitation.

When he draws his body up, her breath catches in her chest and her eyes slipping shut with expectation. But instead of penetration, she's favored only with a mouth tracing her right breast.

"Tom," she repeats after a while, this time a little more needy.

She's never found herself begging him in bed before, not that she hasn't thought about it. It's just that he's typically compliant with her cues, and in the rare occurrence that he doesn't pick up on them, she's quick to take control.

Pinned beneath him, her desire quickly growing faster than his agonizingly slow pace, the last thing she contemplates is taking the lead.

When he finally slides into her, it's after a methodical exploration of her collarbone, her shoulder, her arms, her breasts. And even with his first movements inside of her, it's obvious he has no intention of picking up speed.

"Please," she gasps, both of her hands finding his hair when he again flicks his tongue across a breast.

He pretends not to notice her pulling fingers and slightly bucking hips, his own movements accelerating only slightly after several minutes.

"Do you know what it was like to not be able to touch you?" he murmurs, grazing a nipple with his teeth. "Having you sit behind me all day. Pretending I wasn't imagining touching your body rather than helm."

She gasps at the words, the slightest sound of desperation and pain mingled in his desire. The need within her now tightens like a spring, the realization having found her that this slow torture is him punishing her for the six lonely days she imposed on both of them.

Whimpering like a kitten left out in the cold, she isn't sure her sanity with hold much longer, however fitting his reprisal.

"I can't. . . I can't. . ." she gasps, much later.

What it is she can't do, she doesn't know. But Tom now finds himself past the point of wondering, his breaths coming in shallow pants as he moves above her. Like a drowning man struggling against the waves, his efforts become more and more excruciating, each intake of oxygen a little harder to manage.

When she wraps her legs around him, clinging to him with shaking limbs and white knuckles, he grants them both the salvation of release, speeding his movements and altering his angle in a way that soon has her writhing and keening beneath him.

"Kathryn," he gasps, burying his face between her breasts, after her body has already stilled and his own spasms.

Eventually, when he regains enough control over his limbs, he rolls off her, pulling her small frame against his larger one. Her face flush against his chest, she doesn't think she can move. Her body is caught somewhere between euphoria and complete exhaustion.

It's only a minute later that he feels her snickering slightly against his chest.

"No more week-long breaks," she declares weakly. "I'm pretty sure the next one is going to kill us. Or at least the making up will."

Closing his eyes, he realizes part of his right leg is cramping and the rest of his body feels like gelatin. He begins to snicker, too.

"It would certainly lead to injuries I'd rather not have to go to the Doc for," he quips. "Pretty hard to explain away a sex sprain, even to a hologram."

As she continues to shake with laughter, he reaches for a blanket to pull over them, calling for the computer to cancel an early alarm as he settles back into the mattress.

"Why were going to get up so early?" she asks, already drifting closer to sleep.

"Promised Harry I work out with him in the morning. But I don't think there's anyway I'm going to be in any shape for it. . . I'll just reschedule for next week."

Her eyes snap open, her face shifting to look at him.

"Don't cancel on Harry," she says, a cryptic expression on her face. "Just. . . do something other than working out."

He looks at her, incredulous through his exhaustion.

"Are you sure? When I get out of bed, it's going to wake you up, too. You'll never get back to sleep."

"I'll manage," she assures. "I happen to know a charming pilot who's terribly good at relaxing me when I'm stressed and tired."

"Oh?" he asks innocently. "Who is it? I may know him."

"Maybe," she says, adopting the same expression. "Ever met Pablo Baytart?"

Grumbling, he pulls her possessively against him. Willing to prove, even in his exhausted state, that he has maneuvers the likes of which Ensign Baytart has never seen.


	5. Only a moment

**Chapter 5: Only a moment**

Over lunch, Harry tries to hide his concern from Tom. Slowly eating his meal, he steals furtive glances at his friend, quickly ducking his head down again to his plate. After about the tenth nervous look, Tom looks at his best friend pointedly, demanding his attention.

"She's going to kill you," Harry announces, looking up from his lunch.

"She's not going to kill me," Tom replies dismissively.

Harry hesitates only a moment, looking back at the pilot as though his words failed to register.

"She's going to kill you," Harry repeats. "And as fond as we all are of you, none of us are going to show up at your funeral. . . Because she's the Captain."

Putting down his spoon beside his soup, Tom finds himself torn between the annoyance and fear that Harry's words inspire.

"It's just a surprise party," Tom remarks, with a wave of his hand. "It's going to be fine."

"She hates surprises!" Harry exclaims, lowering his voice when Chell walks by.

"She just hasn't had one she's liked before," Tom retorts.

The slight smirk on the Lieutenants' face is the only hint of the private thought that he has given Kathryn many surprises in the last six months. All of them of the same general variety, but each one incredibly well received.

Harry notes the expression, his own eyebrows drawing in slightly. He's happy for Tom as well as the Captain, but he's grateful that Tom doesn't go into details.

"It's just weird," Harry had said two months earlier, when one of his friend's comments had strayed a little too far.

"You find my personal life weird?" Tom countered, seeming slightly hurt.

"No. . . Yes."

The Ensign paused, putting down his ion mallet while their parrisses match was still in recess.

"I just don't want to know about her that way. . . It's like thinking about my mother."

Tom could have scolded the younger man. Made him feel ridiculous for thinking of his CO and best friend's girlfriend as anything like a maternal figure. But instead he's simply turned the tables around.

"Kathryn reminds you of your mother?" Tom asked, lowering his voice. "When we get back, I'd like to be introduced."

The appall on the younger man's face had lasted much longer than their parrisses match.

"She's going to kill you," Harry repeats again presently, shaking his head. "She's going to hate the fact that we threw a party. And when she finds out it was you who planned it, B'Elanna's going to help her incinerate your body in the warp core."

Looking at the table between them, Tom considers Harry's image. He and B'Elanna have come a long way in the last two months, even spending time together on the holodeck on three occasions. The second time, Kathryn had come in halfway through, looking for him, and B'Elanna's smile appeared effortless as the two women conversed.

It was something that brought Tom comfort at the time. But now, picturing his own motionless form being lowered into some dark corner of the ship, B'Elanna and Kathryn's chattiness leaves him feeling slightly uneasy.

"You're overreacting, Har. It's going to be great."

"Right," Harry mutters. "But just so we're clear. . . I had _nothing_ to do with this."

Tom smiles. Thinking for a second he should reveal to his best friend that all of the invitations that are going out appear under the name 'Harry Kim'.

"Got it," the pilot chimes, only to receive a wary glance from his companion.

. . . . .

"Do you really want to wear red?"

"Why not? I look good in red. I even seem to remember a certain pilot telling me so on several occasions."

"Yes," Tom drawls. "But the point is that you look good in red _everyday_. Don't you want to wear another color while we're off duty?"

Standing in her bedroom, Kathryn folds her arms. In the week leading up to the party, Tom has grown more and more anxious. Distracted sometimes, moody others. But all around annoying the hell out of Kathryn.

If she hadn't already learned in advance about the surprise, she would probably be a little past irritated with him at this point.

"What would you like me to wear?" she asks, managing patience.

"Anything but red," he answers, and she throws up her hands, moving into the living room.

"I give up," she calls. "Just replicate something and I'll wear it."

"Fine."

When she comes back into the bedroom with a cup of coffee in hand, she's disappointed to see that Tom has replicated the same dress she intended to wear, only in a different color.

When he normally chooses clothes for her, perhaps grabbing something from her quarters after their shift or replicating something himself, he picks something a little sexier. A lower neckline, a higher hemline; a fabric that clings to her body.

And isn't so much that Tom prefers such things, as he responds to her the same way (to her continuing surprise) even in oversized pajama and no make up. Rather, it's that he knows she prefers such things. Despite that in her front of her crew, she chooses things that are classic and modest.

The dress laying on the bed isn't a bad one, just simple. 'Completely appropriate for a starship Captain,' Tom would normally tease.

"I thought I would stick with your original choice," Tom explains, noting her look of disappointment. "Do you not want to wear it now?"

She doesn't, she realizes. It was something she picked out without much thought, and now, looking at it, the dress seems terribly. . . boring.

"I don't know that it works as well in blue," she lies. "I'll grab something else."

With a sigh and a check of the chrono, Tom excuses himself to the living room and sits down on her couch.

"Alright," she announces a few minutes later, emerging into the living room.

She wears a short cocktail dress in the same dark shade of blue Tom picked out, but the cut of it accentuates her curves.

"Are you sure you want to wear that?" Tom asks, eyeing her bare shoulders and the decidedly high hemline.

"I thought you would like it," she chuckles.

"Oh, _I do_," he assures. "But I don't know that you want young Ensign Kim to see you out and about in that."

She rolls her eyes at the now familiar joke as she fastens her earrings.

"We're just going for dinner on the holodeck," she shrugs innocently. "If anyone catches sight of me, it will only be as I disappear around a corner."

When Tom falls silent, obviously uncomfortable, she fights the urge to smirk. He looks for a moment like he's about to say something, but then he shrugs the thought off just as quickly.

"Let's get out of here," he says, and they both exit into the corridor.

Standing in the turbolift, Tom shifts with nervous energy, beginning to tap his hand on his leg. It would be kind of her to just tell him that she knows, thus heading off his worry that the party they're about to walk into will irritate her.

Too bad for him she's decided he doesn't deserve such comfort.

He's been plotting this little mutiny for weeks. Running around behind her back, co-opting her senior staff. Turning both Chakotay and Tuvok (even Tuvok!) against her with his silly scheme. She's glad he's nervous. And in truth, she's made him fret more at every possible turn.

Watching Tom's index finger tap out a nervous rhythm, Kathryn smiles sweetly.

"Everything alright?" she asks casually.

"Fine," Tom assures, as the lift doors part.

Halfway into the party, Tom seems just as nervous. Her entry into shouts of 'surprise' went well, of course, and she seems perfectly happy, chatting away with their friends and colleagues. But if she were upset, even downright angry, she would look the same way here; putting on a smiling face and laughing with crewmembers.

Waiting, very patiently, to blow up on him once they're alone.

When B'Elanna slips into the seat next to Kathryn after Chakotay vacates it, Tom is on the other side of the room. Stealing furtive glances at Kathryn and trying his best not to look scared.

"He must be absolutely terrified," B'Elanna says, her face completely even.

Kathryn has to fight hard to keep the smile from her lips, but she succeeds. Somehow managing to look stern for Tom's benefit.

"He is," Kathryn confirms, mirth evident in her voice.

"How'd you find out? Harry?"

"Mm hmm," Kathryn responds, sipping her wine. "When Tom started getting fidgety, I went to him." She adds, narrowing her eyes. "It look a week, but I finally got Harry to fold."

"It took a week for Harry to cave? That's impressive for him."

Kathryn's expression becomes a genuine scowl. She blames Tom for Harry's new-found ability to withstand her pressuring him. It's yet another thing she plans to punish him for.

"I believe Tom is perspiring," Seven observes, slipping into the seat across from B'Elanna. "The Doctor is worried he has fallen ill."

The subtle mirth radiating from the former drone indicates the intended joke. Still, she keeps the same stoic demeanor as her companions. Not allowing Tom any comfort by seeing his friend's face lit up with joy.

"Too bad there's no inoculation for being an idiot," B'Elanna remarks, but it's obvious joke isn't a malicious one and Kathryn makes a sound in the back of her throat to signal her approval.

"Have you decided how long you are going to allow him to suffer?" Seven asks.

"You think I'm letting him get too worried?" Kathryn guesses.

Seven only hesitates a moment before answering emphatically.

"No."

The response earns her a piqued expression from B'Elanna and an arched eyebrow from Kathryn. Tom is, after all, one of the young woman's closest friends.

"Last month Chakotay received Tom's help designing a program of Bajor's Kendra Valley. He took me on a picnic in an effort to surprise me. . . It rained."

B'Elanna leans forward in her chair a little, looking contemplative.

"When Mike and I got back together, he planned a surprise dinner after I worked a sixteen-hour shift. I was exhausted, but walked into my quarters to hear "Moon River" playing. . . Of all things." B'Elanna stops, shaking her head with disgust before continuing, "I'm convinced Tom had something to do with it. Only he could choose music that annoying."

Kathryn snorts and Seven falls silent, the latter's alliance with the engineer indicated only by her refusal to smile when she meets Tom's gaze.

All three women hate surprises. But Tom loves them, spends endless hours planning them. Always drawing in co-conspirators to carry them out. Corrupting innocent men. Like Harry. Chakotay. Mike Ayala. The pilot's sins must be punished, it has been decided.

When Tom sees B'Elanna slip into the seat next to Kathryn, his stomach begins to do poorly choreographed flips. Like a cadet on a flight sim, it spins and then lurches, only to do so over again.

When Seven joins the two, failing after a while to return any part of the toothy grin he sends her, he feels even worse. Eventually wondering if Seven ever got around to reading the volume of Shakespeare's tragedies that he gave her. Tom's always been the fondest of the play _Julius Caesar_. And watching Seven sitting with Kathryn and B'Elanna, he replays Caesar's last line in his head, feeling a brand new sympathy for the fallen leader.

When the party is finally winding down, Kathryn slides next to Tom, presently standing in a corner and removed from other guests.

"Having fun?" he asks earnestly.

She could torture him some more at this point- perhaps draw out her reply or look like she's deciding on an answer. But the truth of the matter is, she can't remember the last time she had this much fun with the crew and she's grateful he did this. The fact that he's desperate to receive confirmation he succeeded at making her happy-beyond his fear for his own safety- earns him a genuine smile.

"I am," she says, and is rewarded with an ear-to-ear grin from her partner.

"I was worried you. . . wouldn't like this."

"Maybe I wouldn't have, once upon a time," she acknowledges. "But tonight. . . It was lovely to spend this time with everyone."

He smiles again. But then the smile falters and he looks at her searchingly.

"You knew, didn't you?" he accuses.

"No, I didn't."

He pauses, staring at her as she uses all of her command training not to twitch.

"_Kathryn_."

"Fine," she relents. "I knew."

"How? Who?"

She refuses to respond to him, but despite her silence it only takes a second for recognition to hit him.

"Damn it, Harry."

His disappointed look elicits an affectionate arm rub from Kathryn, who regrets that she can't kiss him here, as she would in private.

They're still cautious about public displays of affection, though they've all but announced their relationship to the crew. Anyone who didn't know already having finally put two and two together several weeks earlier, when the environmental controls malfunctioned and Kathryn charged onto the bridge in Tom's leather jacket.

She'd simply reached for the nearest article of heavy clothing available to her, given that it was in the middle of the night and she was in Tom's quarters. Regretting the unthinking choice once fully conscious on the bridge, with a dozen pairs of eyes watching her.

"I can't believe I didn't think about it," she moaned later, burying her face in her hands as she perched on the edge of Tom's bed.

Tom hadn't looked at her with any sympathy.

"How did you even manage to do this?" he asked, poking his finger through the hole in his jacket pocket and wagging it at her.

"That's what you take away from all of this? That's there a hole in your jacket?"

He'd looked at her with muted frustration. She sighed.

"Can I kiss the jacket and make it better?" she asked smugly.

"No. But I have other things that you can kiss."

The triple entendre made her chuckle, her laughter broken only when Tom kissed her, his tongue running along her teeth.

"It's almost the morning cycle," she warned. Her hands running up his back sending the opposite message.

"We were interrupted earlier," he reminds.

"Is that how you think of ship-wide emergencies now? Interruptions to our sex life?"

His only answer at first was to bite down on her shoulder, sending a pulse of energy down her spine.

"I think of everything outside of this room as an interruption to our sex life," he murmured finally, the tops of their uniforms already discarded.

"Even Harry?" she asked innocently, removing her uniform pants and underwear before straddling his lap.

"Especially Harry," he quipped, guiding her down onto him.

She thought about responding for a brief second, but chose instead to trace his lips with her tongue.

Looking at him now in the holodeck, she gets the same smoldering look she did then in his quarters.

"You can't look at me like that," Tom warns, his slight laughter hiding the fact that his breath hitches in his chest.

"Like what?" she asks innocently.

He only rolls his eyes, and she shrugs, dramatically feigning disappointment.

"I hear Baytart's still on the market," he consoles. "If you need someone to make out with in public."

"I don't think Baytart's quite up to my speed," she smirks.

"Really? What speed is that?"

She's just about to answer him when Tuvok interrupts them.

"I apologize for the intrusion," Tuvok offers, looking at Tom.

"No intrusion," Tom assures. "The Captain and I were just talking flight mechanics."

Tuvok looks between them for a moment, neither one of their appearances betraying anything.

. . . . .

As Tom rubs her shoulders, Kathryn sags deeper into her seat on the floor in front of him.

After sometime even the grunts and moans stop, Tom assuming that she is dangerously close to falling sleep where she sits.

"Come on," he says, standing up from the couch. "Let's go to sleep."

"Sleep?" she asks incredulously, simultaneously failing to stifle a yawn.

"Sleep," he replies firmly, offering her his hand.

They'd both taken her look earlier in the holodeck as foreshadow of post-party activities. But the three hours of social time with the crew, coming at the end of an already long week, has completely taken it out of her.

Even as she almost falls asleep on her feet, she looks at Tom haughtily.

"I remember a time when you couldn't wait to get me into bed," she says, pulling on her nightgown.

"I think you're keenly aware that I still can't wait to get you into bed," he responds, a smirk on his face. "It's just that you're a lot more lively with a few hours of sleep in you."

He gets a pillow tossed at his face, but peace is declared by the time they settle into the mattress.

"I'm sorry I ruined your surprise," she murmurs into his shoulder.

"Don't be," he soothes, running his fingers through her hair. "Besides. . . It just means I'll have to be smarter about hiding what I got you for Prixin."

At this, she snaps wide awake, propping herself up with an elbow.

"You already got my Prixin present? . . . It's months months out still."

The corners of his mouth turn upward, but he doesn't respond or even open his eyes. She settles into the mattress with a huff, knowing that she'll never be able to sleep now.

When he moves against her a few minutes later, she steels herself against him, favoring him with a petulant look.

"What happened to going to sleep?" she scoffs childishly.

"We were. But now you're awake."

Her body doesn't respond when he presses into her suggestively, his lips finding her neck.

"I thought I was more lively when I had sleep in me."

Her bed partner chuckles, a sound that irritates her more than his subtle taunts about her next surprise.

"You're even more lively when you're angry."

His finger teases a nipple before drawing a line to her abdomen, and her breath catches in her chest.

"Tom," she breathes, her head suddenly spinning.

She finds it surprising that after six months they still have this effect on each other. She's even been waiting with silent worry for the day their passion begins to fade.

Undone tonight by just one touch from him, that day is no where in sight.

They're both naked, Tom's mouth trailing slowly down her abdomen, when she remembers their previous conversation.

"Are you going to tell me what it is?" she asks, her eyes shutting when Tom's mouth kisses her navel.

He eventually clues into what she's talking about, his voice amused against her body.

"Nope."

"Do I even get a hint?"

He stops his journey downward, resting his chin on her thigh and looking up, into her face.

"I'm a talented guy, Kath. But even I can't talk _and _do this. . . What would you prefer?"

"Hmm."

Looking past her breasts into her contemplative expression, Tom realizes with horror that she's genuinely torn.

He fights the momentary impulse to roll off her and settle with a grumble on his side of the bed.

"Make it so," she says finally, closing her eyes again.

Resuming his previous heading, he counts his lover lucky that he cannot presently voice any number of acerbic comments that float to mind.

. . . . .

Kathryn is completely lost in thought when she strides directly into B'Elanna, catching the younger woman's shoulder with some force.

"I'm sorry," she apologizes, grabbing for the PADD B'Elanna dropped. "I wasn't paying any attention."

"I wasn't either," B'Elanna confesses, casting a mournful look at the PADD Janeway hands her back. "I just came from a meeting with the Doctor."

Kathryn looks at her with interest.

"The list of all the fun things I'm no longer allowed to eat or do," B'Elanna remarks darkly, waving the PADD.

Kathryn only laughs.

As far as anyone knows, B'Elanna and Mike are the only couple effected by the breakdown of contraceptive boosters four weeks earlier, the result of unusual radiation being given off by an anomaly _Voyager_ was studying at the time.

"Oops," the Doctors had said, over an open comm line with the bridge.

Some would find it amazing, much later, how long a momentary silence had felt. The longest of which stretching painfully between the conn and the Captain's seat.

"You're not pregnant," Tom had declared with relief, snapping a medical tricorder closed in her quarters.

Dating the ship's medic came with perks. Even if she resisted the very strong urge to call him into her ready room, his tricorder in hand, during their shift.

"Thank god," she breathed. Her relief abruptly dissipating when she took note of his quickly clouding expression. "Tom, I want children. But I can't have them now."

"I understand."

She knew that he didn't want children this in early in their relationship either. But this wasn't what she meant by the statement. However much time she's managed to find for a personal life in the last year, she still can't take on the responsibilities of parenthood while being the Captain of a ship struggling to get back home.

"Tom-"

"Hey," he said, derailing her worry before it could build up steam. "I know. And it's okay."

She hugged him loosely, her cheek resting on his chest.

The Doctor had yet to give that opening lecture on menopause, but Kathryn took the fact that they'd engaged in (frequent) unprotected sex without incident as a sign that the lecture loomed just around the bend. She wondered whether Tom would have misgivings, then, about being with someone older.

"I don't have any regrets," he remarked, seeming to read her thoughts. "Knowing everything I do, I would choose you in an instant."

"But will you still feel that way in five years?" she asked, pulling away from him.

"I think in five years we'll be home," he began sincerely. "In which case we'll have any number of options available to us."

"But what if we're not? I know you want you children, and I-"

"I want you," he interrupted. "What I want is you."

She buried her face in his chest again. Hoping if she pressed far enough into him, she would find some confirmation there that his words were the truth.

"Captain?" B'Elanna asks presently, noting Kathryn's fair away expression as they stand in the corridor.

"I was just thinking," Kathryn says, shaking her head and straightening up. "I'm so happy for the two of you, B'Elanna."

Torres watches the woman in front of her closely, the way she shifts easily into a mask that hides her own emotions and fears. But still, if only for a second, she saw it on Kathryn's face. The doubt. And also the slight envy.

"It's a bit scary," B'Elanna admits, her face softening. "Mike and I want this, but it isn't exactly something we planned."

"It's going to be fine," Kathryn soothes, and B'Elanna mostly believes her.

For all of their differences over the years, Kathryn typically finds a way to disarm B'Elanna's skepticism, as well as her worries.

"If I make you the baby's god-mother, you'll get to babysit."

It could be a cheery statement, but B'Elanna voices it as a taunting threat.

"If you make me babysit, it means Tom will also be babysitting. Do you really want the corruptive force that is Tom Paris around your child?"

B'Elanna feigns concern and then horror.

"You're right. I'll ask Sam to be god-mother," B'Elanna announces jokingly, turning to leave. "It's bad enough Tom's corrupted the ship's Captain. Don't want him getting to the new generation, too."

As the engineer departs, Kathryn shoots her a glare that would have made her nervous, several years earlier.

When Kathryn walks into Sickbay, Tom is no where to be found. Just as she expected.

"Hi," she greets, leaning in the doorway of the Doctor's office.

"Captain," the EMH greets. "To what do I owe the pleasure of seeing you today?"

"Just strolling through," she shrugs. "Thought I'd stop and say hello."

The Doctor glances at her briefly over the monitor he scans. Kathryn doesn't 'stroll' anywhere during her shift, even at lunch. And she especially doesn't stroll into Sickbay, unless a certain pilot is present.

"I don't know anything about your Prixin present," the Doctor announces. "But Tom warned me you'd be by to snoop."

"I am not snooping," she shoots back, seeming indignant.

"So you came by just to talk to me?" he asks slowly, and with marked skepticism.

"You are my favorite hologram," she jokes.

"Well, as much as I would like to chat with you, I'm afraid I'm a little absorbed in these labs right now."

"Really? I was hoping you could squeeze me in for a physical."

Now he abandons his work entirely, looking up at her with a quizzical expression.

"Your last physical was three months ago."

"So?"

He arches an eyebrow at her, and she continues to look innocent. Desperately trying to buy herself a few more minutes of conversation with him, even if it means enduring an exam and the ensuing lectures.

"Are you feeling ill?" he asks.

"No."

"Tired?"

"No. . . Well, no more than normal."

"Otherwise odd or out of sorts?"

"No."

"Well than I can save you some time and a few scans by giving you my prognosis now. . . You suffer from a crippling strain of It's-None-Of-Your-Business. My prescription is that you _stop snooping_." He adds, with a perfunctory sniff, "I'm a doctor, not an informant."

In font of him, Kathryn begins to fume with frustration. The Doctor was one of her last hopes in figuring out her Prixin present, the week-long holiday now only a few days away. This time Tom wisely told Harry nothing, leaving in the dark both Chakotay and Tuvok, too. And there's no way he would have ever told B'Elanna.

It's entirely clear where the half-Klingon's loyalties lie.

Despite her close friendship with the Doctor, she held out hope that Tom would have told him something anyway. For all Tom's desire to keep this secret from her, he still has the same problem with impulse control that he always did. His shifts in Sickbay, with long, boring stretches of lab work, being the perfect conditions for him to make a spontaneous confession to anyone within hearing distance.

"He really hasn't told me anything, Kathryn," the Doctor assures.

He seems sincere, but she still doesn't quite believe him. However prone to gossip the Doctor is, he can keep a secret when it really counts. Unlike Tom.

Although, in fairness to Tom, she muses, the EMH hasn't had to withstand the same level of assault as the pilot when it comes to her inquiring after her Prixin present.

"Is it in your quarters?" she'd asked Tom, only two nights before.

"What?" he managed.

"My present," she replied, slightly breathless, as she rotated her hips slowly on top of him.

"Not telling," he half-moaned, cupping her breasts and watching her body intently.

"You don't have to tell me where it is. I just. . . want to know if it's small enough to fit in your quarters."

She coupled the statement with an acceleration of her movements, Tom's face distorting with pleasure.

"Did they teach you this. . . interrogation technique. . . in. . . command school?" he demanded, his words punctuated by shallow breaths as she moved above him, and his hands sliding to her hips to further quicken her pace.

"No," she breathed, leaning forward slightly and closing her eyes, "I'm proud to say this technique is all my own."

It was the last thing either of them was able to say for several minutes.

"I have no idea where he learned to be so sneaky," she now says haughtily, crossing her arms in front of the EMH.

"I'm pretty sure I have an idea," the Doctor murmurs.

She only grumbles before turning on her heel to exit the office.

Tom strides in just as she's about to leave, favoring her with a huge smile as he sees her.

"Captain," he greets, and she fights the urge to roll her eyes.

"Lieutenant."

"Having a good day?"

"I was. . . Until I ran into you."

If he had any doubt that she came here to nose around, her sour mood eliminates it. He begins to chuckle.

"You should be careful, Mister Paris. An angry Captain is bad for the crew. They may feel the need to seek retribution on whomever caused my poor humor."

"Maybe," he concedes. "But if they come after me with sharp objects and phaser rifles, you'll never find out what your present is."

She rolls the thought around in her head, weighing the joy of seeing Tom tortured against the satisfaction of finally finding out her present.

"Fine," she declares. "But if I'm not impressed by it, I'm throwing you to the waiting mob."

He barks out his laughter and she finally cracks a smile.

"Have Seven and Harry sorted out the last transmission yet?" Tom asks, still smiling.

"Not yet," Kathryn replies, sounding suddenly solemn. "But they should have most of it by the end of today."

Tom takes note of her abrupt shift in tone at the subject and thinks to worry. In the last cycle of communications with the Alpha Quadrant, she finally received word that their would no formal consequences for her having relationship with a subordinate. Still, something Owen Paris had said in a private message to her belied all the reassurance Command's pronouncement brought her.

_Only you can know if your relationship with Tom compromises your command, Kathryn. _

It's the same thing Tuvok or Chakotay may have said to her. But there was something in Owen's voice and face when he said it that revealed a more profound concern or lingering doubt.

Perhaps, too, a subtle disappointment.

Though Kathryn replayed the message several times, freezing it at the moment Owen uttered that sentence, she never shared its contents with Tom.

He gathered most of what he needed to know from the omission.

"Well, I'm late to meet Seven in Astrometrics," she says, moving to exit Sickbay. "I'll see you tonight at dinner."

"Kathryn," he calls, and she turns around just outside the door.

He looks at her for a second, crossing his arms to indicate gravity while she waits.

"Don't waste your time asking Seven about your present. She doesn't know either."

As the door closes behind her, the last thing Tom hears is her muttered curse.

. . . . .

When the week of Prixin comes, Kathryn spends the first three days of it on the bridge.

The Delta Flyer has been captured while on a routine scouting mission, and Tom, B'Elanna, and Samantha Wildman are being held hostage.

The first two days Kathryn is focused, desperately trying to negotiate with the mercenary species who wants to trade the lives of her crew for technology she can't in good conscience give them.

But on the last hour of the last day, learning that one of the hostages has been shot, she completely freezes. And sitting in her chair on the bridge, she doesn't hear Tuvok giving a tactical report or see Harry's worried expression. Instead, images and sounds of Tom float before her.

Kathryn knows, both from dying once herself and surviving more loved ones than she cares to count, that there's some truth to the old Earth fable about one's life flashing before them as they die. Only instead of it flashing in a moment- like lightning- in front of the person who's dying, it enfolds slowly- across an entire lifetime- for those the departed leaves behind.

A dozen memories of loss fill her mind, from those of the first crewmembers she ever lost as a CO to Joe Carey's lifeless body being transported back to them, three years earlier. But after all of this, her last coherent thought is of another pilot, two decades earlier; the image the wreckage of the small ship that contained him and one other sinking below meters of icy water in only a few seconds.

And now, that thought be laid side by side the image of Tom's shining eyes.

She's just about to voice the option that they consider a technology exchange when Tuvok announces that he's found a method of penetrating the alien vessel's shields. The ensuing events feel like they're going on without her, though she hears the sound of her own voice register dimly in her ears.

Making her way down to Sickbay an hour later, Kathryn arrives just in time to see the three hostages materialize in the center of Sickbay. While Samantha Wildman appears unharmed, B'Elanna has a large gash across her face. The Klingon cradles in her arms Tom's limp, bloody form.

Kathryn feels her legs almost give out below her, and Seven, having arrived just after her, seems to sense it. Grabbing the older woman's arm to steady her as the Doctor moves Tom to the surgical bay.

"What happened?" Seven asks, after B'Elanna's wounds have been treated.

When the engineer begins to speak, she seems shaky, having difficulty uttering the response.

"When they went to take me from the cell, he fought them to protect me. . . He fought to protect me and they shot him."

B'Elanna's voice is desolate. Survivor's guilt is an acquaintance, though once whose association she's tried desperately to distance herself from. Watching the Doctor perform surgery on Tom, the engineer feels her old companion of five years snake once more around her torso. Vaguely certain that if Tom dies, the cold embrace constricting her chest will not leave her, even for a moment.

As Seven looks at B'Elanna hesitantly, Kathryn's eyes remain locked on the scene in the surgical bay.

"He prayed," B'Elanna says suddenly, and more to herself than the other two women.

"What?" Kathryn asks, her gaze not shifting.

B'Elanna looks disoriented, torn between the emotion running through her and the memory that's quickly fading.

"When I held him. . . . After he was shot. He prayed. . . He prayed that he would see you again."

As Doctor continues working feverishly on Tom, Kathryn and B'Elanna remain silently watching. Seven standing stoically beside both of them.

. . . . .

When Tom wakes up the first time in Sickbay, it's Seven rather than Kathryn that's at his side.

"Kathryn?" he asks, squinting his eyes in the light.

"She was here earlier," Seven explains. "But she returned to the bridge."

Tom opens his eyes fully, looking at Sickbay's ceiling through the bright light that accosts him.

"There was nothing," he murmurs after a minute. "I was alive. . . And then there was nothing."

The realization isn't a surprise to him. After all, he's been dead once before. Still, there's the faintest trace of pain in the admission. As if he hoped somehow he would be proven wrong this time.

"You should rest," Seven admonishes. "The Doctor will want to check on you soon."

Tom nods, but doesn't close his eyes. Squinting instead at the illumination above him while he contemplates the light he failed to find.

. . . . .

When Kathryn finds Tom in his quarters his first night out of Sickbay, it's the first time they've spent any length of time together prior to his ill-fated mission. She stopped by Sickbay several times to see him, but never when they were able to be alone.

The first two times he thought it was coincidence. But after that, he began to worry.

His worry has only increased his first day free of Sickbay, Kathryn failing to come and see him either before her shift or during lunch.

"Hey," he says, smiling wildly as she enters his quarters.

"Hey," she echoes, kissing his cheek. "How are you feeling?"

"Mmm. Like I was in the passenger seat of the Studebaker while Seven drove the Indy 500."

She laughs at the joke, but it's a weak one and obviously for show. He laces his fingers through hers and pulls her to him slightly.

When she doesn't really move, remaining where she is, he closes his eyes. Feeling a phantom of pain materialize in his stomach.

"I didn't see you much in Sickbay," he remarks.

Even though the observation hurts him, it isn't so much an accusation. More the beginning of a something he's felt coming since he woke up in Sickbay without her beside him.

"I know," she breathes. "And I'm sorry. I wanted to stay with you, but I couldn't leave the bridge."

It's only half true, Tom suspects. And as patient as he's become over the years, he still isn't the kind of person to wait for the other shoe to drop when it comes to matters of the heart.

"Couldn't come down to Sickbay because of the remaining crisis? Or couldn't come down because you barricaded yourself in your ready room?"

Kathryn freezes, suspecting wrongly that someone from the bridge staff has come by to visit him.

"I know you Kathryn," he says, shaking his head. "I know what you look like when you're making a decision. And I know what you look like when you've already made it."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she lies, but this only angers him.

"Don't you dare dodge this," he warns, his voice low. "I think the very least I deserve is the truth."

"Tom, I. . . " Looking at him, her voice falters and her eyes begin to well with tears.

"Kathryn," he pleads. "Talk to me."

"I froze on the bridge," she admits eventually, and in a small voice. "I froze for the first time in nine years. . . If Tuvok hadn't found a way to transport the three of you back to _Voyager_, I would have begun negotiations to trade technology for your lives."

"We've been together as a crew for a long time," he points out. "By the book answers are going to get more and more difficult to follow through with in situations like this. Even when those answer are right the ones."

The observation about her feelings for her crew is a correct one, but it isn't the center of her concern, and they both know it. She looks at him, her eyes alight with pain and fear as well as another emotion he's rarely seen on her.

It takes him a few moments to recognize it as shame.

"Tom," she whispers, "it wasn't about Samantha or B'Elanna. As horrible as that it is. . . It was about you. Two other crewmembers' lives were in jeopardy and the only thing I thought of was you."

He falls silent, unsure what to say. His foreboding feeling only worsening when he realizes her words, however raw with pain, indicate several cycles of contemplation. She's thought about this for days, he realizes. Has even argued about it for hours with Chakotay, the Commander likely falling into a dejected silence when he couldn't allay her concerns.

"What did my father say to you in the last transmission?" he asks suddenly, and unable to look at her.

She hesitates, startled at how quickly he's able to connect the dots. Even the ones she hasn't drawn for him.

"He told me only I would know if my relationship was undermining my command."

Tom closes his eyes again, silently cursing the father he's only a few years into learning to forgive.

"And you think it is now? Because of one crisis?"

"Not just one crisis," she responds, shaking her head. "My ability to act in a crisis. The safety of my crew and my ship. We've gotten lucky these last nine months. There hasn't been anything prior to this that's directly threatened you above and beyond threats to the ship."

"Lucky?" he asks.

"You don't have the best track record when it comes to returning safely."

"So our relationship is dangerous because I'm too risky in my on-duty behavior?"

"Our relationship is dangerous period. And it would be no matter who you were or what you did."

He looks at her, meeting her gaze in a forlorn way that further fills her eyes with tears.

"How long were you going to wait to end things?" he asks bleakly.

She expected him to fight her tooth and nail on this, not that his protests would have mattered. But she realizes now that he already knows there's no swaying her. That the woman breaking up with him is the Captain not Kathryn, however symbiotic the relationship between the two identities is.

The fact that he understands her commitment to her job enough not to fight it- not to think for even a second that he stands a chance against it- makes her decision that much harder.

The first tear escapes. Then another and another, until she's sobbing uncontrollably.

It was one thing to wait until he was healed, but the reality is she wanted to give herself one more week with him. Bask in the warmth of his joy when she gave him his Prixin present. Lay next to him in bed, trying to memorize the contours of his body while she listened to him breathe in bed next to her.

She will decide later that the only thing more selfish than her reason for wanting to wait is the fact that now, as she ends things, it's her who buries her face in his lap, her tears rapidly collecting in the fabric of his pants. Her who he comforts, whilst she chooses one hundred and fifty other people over their relationship.

"Kathryn," he soothes.

As he runs his hands through her hair and lightly over her back, she cries harder.

"I'm sorry," she says eventually, drying her eyes.

"You don't have to be sorry," he points out, his own panic finally catching up to him.

She ignores the intention of the comment, looking at her lap as she begins to speak shakily about her desire to remain friends. The words not quite finding him, his heart thudding in his ears and his head beginning to spin.

When she finally stands up to leave his quarters, he expects her to pause before she reaches the door. Maybe look back at him, if only for a moment, with eyes filled with all the longing they both feel.

She doesn't. And as soon as the doors close behind her, Tom's own sadness comes crushing down on him.


	6. Like a stone I

**Chapter 6: Like a stone (I)**

When B'Elanna waddles into the garage, Tom tries to suppress his smirk. Even if it's a sight to which the ship is now accustomed, B'Elanna Torres hugely pregnant is something that never fails to be amusing.

Most wisely choose not to voice this within earshot of the Chief Engineer. Even if she can't outrun them, none of them doubt for a second what would happen if she actually caught them.

"I thought you were supposed to be in Sickbay," he says, standing up from his position over the open hood of the convertible.

B'Elanna doesn't try to hide her put off expression. Even if Paris' over-protective urges have become predictable, it doesn't mean she's less annoyed by them. She just tries to be tolerant of them, both for the sake of their new-found friendship and because he did, only months earlier, risk his life to protect her unborn child.

"I went, I went," she says, putting up a hand to stop him. "I just came to say hello to you. . . I thought you'd be there assisting the Doctor during my physical."

He immediately smiles.

"You mean you missed my, oh, what was it? 'Idiotic over-zealousness when it comes to monitoring your pregnancy'? "

He plasters on an innocent expression, even as she glares at him.

"I think there were some Klingon curses in there, too," she says, " but I'm not going to remind you of them. For fear that Miral will hear all of the unkind things I think of her god-father."

Tom smiles at the title, even though it's a thought witch which he's had a chance to grow acquainted.

He's happy that B'Elanna's misgivings about the dominance of the baby's Klingon traits have passed, but he's also happy that he was the one who was able to talk her down from her panic. What was a dark episode for the engineer's relationship with Mike Ayala turned out to be stabilizing one for Tom's friendship with her. He isn't sure if he's ever felt as filled with pride as he did the day after she and Mike reconciled, B'Elanna coming to his quarters to tell him she wanted him to be her daughter's god-father.

"No need to hold back now," he teases, "I'm sure she'll hear all kinds of choice words about me growing up."

"True," she smiles.

"So. . ." he says, looking at her meaningfully.

"So," she echoes, deliberately ignoring the nudge.

"Are you really not going to tell me how the check up went?" he huffs, to which B'Elanna immediately rolls her eyes.

"It went fine! Just like the last hundred of them."

"Fine?"

"Fine," she repeats, putting weight behind the word. "Miral's growth is normal and she's strong as a targ. Just as her acrobatics in my stomach already indicate."

"And her mother?"

"She's alright, too. Though slightly annoyed by a certain pilot right now," she smiles sarcastically.

"How alright?" he questions again, and this time she has to fight the urge to throw a nearby tool at him.

Despite her ominous expression, however, he doesn't back down. And silently she wishes for the days when their arguments would lead to one of them fleeing the other's presence out of cowardice.

The engage in silent staring contest, the half-Klingon (to her own surprise) eventually folding.

"The Doctor wants me to get more rest," she acknowledges slowly.

She doesn't really want to admit it, but isn't as if he can't access her medical records. Even if he couldn't, she realizes she would probably still tell him anyway. For all of Tom's stubbornness and doting, they've come to confide in each other more and more.

It's something that brings them both joy, even if sometimes it invites uncomfortable reflection.

"So what are you doing here?" he prompts, looking at her with mild frustration.

"I told you, I came to see you."

"But you should be _resting_."

"Tom, I took the turbolift here," she hisses. "And then leisurely walked the ten meters from the lift to the holodeck. . . It isn't as though I crawled here on my hands and knees in the Jeffries tubes, doing hand-to-hand combat as I went."

He gives her a skeptical look, but otherwise lets the matter drop. He can tell by the strain in her voice that he's reached the upper limit of the freedom she grants to his worrying.

"Well, since you're here," he begins, turning around, "you could help me."

"You're putting me to work?"

She pretends to be offended, but they both know she's pleased. His earlier 'Grease Monkey' program was a minor dalliance compared to this one, but even then he didn't invite her to tinker with anything. She realizes now that it was probably because she never showed it anything beyond a dismissive expression.

"Yep," he grins. "But only on one condition."

She looks at him expectantly, and he crosses his arms.

"You sit down while we work."

She makes a small growling sound in the back of her throat, but other than that doesn't fight it. He calls for a chair of appropriate height, keeping impressively stoic when he helps her hoist herself into it. The younger Tom Paris would have been too mouthy and thoughtless to pull the straight face off during this. Admittedly, it helps now that B'Elanna is watching him like a circling hawk, looking for any sign of amusement at her condition.

"Is this water damage?" she asks, once finally situated.

"Uh huh," he sighs.

"How in the hell did you manage to submerge the entire car?"

"_I _didn't submerge anything," he immediately retorts.

Leaning over the engine, she smirks.

"I thought you said Seven's driving had progressed."

"It has," he replies. "But she borrowed the program to take Chakotay out the other day and-"

"-she let him drive," she choruses.

Tom frowns, and B'Elanna tries not laugh at either Tom's genuine disappointment or Chakotay's ineptitude at all things involving mechanized motion.

"They were driving around Lake Michigan," he says glumly, patting the car. "Poor baby sank like a stone."

The both silently analyze the damage; B'Elanna shaking her head and Tom looking on with renewed sadness at the sorry state of the vehicle.

"You could always reset the program," she offers, knowing already what his response will be.

"Real life doesn't have reset commands," he shoots back. "No reason why our fantasies should."

The comment is dark in tone, and a bitter shadow falls across his face before disappearing. The darkness and the shadow are two things B'Elanna's seen a lot of where Tom's concerned, these last three months. Both are companions of his from their first years in the Delta Quadrant, but ones she hasn't missed at all.

She briefly considers bringing up Kathryn, but knows that it's too early in the conversation. If she raises the topic now, he'll shut her down immediately. As compassionate and mature as Tom has become over the better part of the last decade, he's sometimes just as guarded with his own feelings as the day she first met him.

"Mike brought up marriage again today," she volunteers eventually, after they've been working in companionable silence for several minutes.

"Oh?" Tom's tone is interested, but not surprised. Mike has now asked B'Elanna to marry him three times.

She shrugs, searching for words as they Tom begins to extract part of the ancient machinery from the vehicle.

"He isn't pushing. . . exactly. But I think he's getting impatient."

"You both want to spend the rest of your lives together. You're having his child. Some. . . impatience. . . is understandable."

B'Elanna's head shoots up, examining his face. When she doesn't see any trace of judgment, she slowly goes back to her own tinkering.

"It's not that I don't want to marry him. I just don't like the idea of marriage being assumed as automatic afterthought to my pregnancy."

"It isn't an automatic afterthought to your pregnancy," he says. "He loves you. And you love him. Even if the timing is partly because of Miral, it's hardly the main reason he wants to marry you."

He straightens up from his work, staring at her intently, but she pretends not to notice, continuing on with a crude tool she finds as rewarding as she does frustrating.

"The whole idea of me trudging down the aisle like this is completely ridiculous," she says, moments later, "maybe after the baby comes. . ."

Tom doesn't buy the casual act, no matter how much she's trying to sell it.

"You don't need to waddle down any aisle."

He pauses, mentally wincing at the look she gives him at his use of 'waddle', but then decides to carry on when she goes back to working.

"She could just do an official ceremony in the Captain's room. You, Mike, and a couple witnesses."

She remains silent, continuing her work. Not even thinking to feel frustrated at his continued refusal to use Janeway's first name, even in private. Her own mind being far too occupied with the hope that he'll drop the present line of conversation.

"Hey," he says, nudging her slightly, "look at me."

When she does so, it's hesitantly and with barely masked misgivings.

"I know it's not about having a wedding or not having a wedding," he says, locking eyes on her. "Talk to me. . . Is this about your parents again?"

"No," she replies, shaking her head, but to Tom's continued doubt.

"B'Elanna, Mike isn't your father. He isn't going to leave you."

"I know that," she says, sounding frustrated, even defensive.

"Getting married isn't dooming yourself to repeating your parents' mistakes."

"Tom," she barks, wiping her hands across her maternity uniform and shaking her head. "It's not about them."

"So, what is it?"

She shakes her head, not wanting to answer him. Not wanting to even look at him.

"B'Elanna?"

"It's. . . it's about you and I."

She ventures a glance at him just in time to see his face distort with emotion. A painful cocktail of regret and apology evident across his high cheekbones, distorting the slender mouth below. It's an emotional recipe she's familiar with, though her own version requires a healthy dollop of self-loathing.

"Mike isn't your father," Tom says intently. "But he also isn't me."

She rakes her hand through her hair, not caring that she's likely trailing oil through it. She meets his eyes, the conflict apparent on her face.

She raised this topic as a quick diversion before drawing him out about his own problems, but didn't actually intend to make her own confessions. It's a type of bait and switch she's become expert at, over the years. It's just that Tom never leaves her room anymore to pull off the switch.

"It isn't about you, or whether Mike is like you. . . It isn't about _Mike_ at all."

He looks at her with concern, waiting for her to go on, and she deflects her eyes away from the blue ones filled with affection and loyalty. Two feelings she still doesn't think she's entitled to, not from him.

"It doesn't matter what Mike is like, Tom. Because I'm still me. The person who pushes people away when they get too close. The woman who pushed _you _away. . . "

Tom closes his eyes briefly, casting his own gaze away when he opens them again.

For all the things they've talked about with each other, they've not talked seriously about the ending of their romantic relationship. Too nervous to use up the capital they've built up over the last six months.

Beneath that, too scared of what each of them would have to admit if they did talk about it.

"You were ready to marry me," she says softly, "and I just. . . shoved you right out an airlock."

He looks at her sadly, and she's genuinely surprised to see the absence of even a trace of bitterness in his face.

"I didn't exactly put up much of a fight though, did I?"

She bows her head, looking at the holographic engine it took Tom days to design. Ruined in a matter of moments.

"I wonder sometimes what our lives what would be like," she admits, "if I hadn't pushed you away. Or if. . ."

"I hadn't let you?"

She nods. It's the only endorsement of his confession she can allow herself at the moment. It's going to take some time to internalize that the end wasn't only her doing.

"I do, too," he volunteers. "Though not in the same way I used to."

She looks surprised by this, and he can't help but smile. Trust B'Elanna to think her most painful thoughts aren't ones that anybody else could share.

"I've wondered what my life would be like if we'd gotten married. If Miral was mine instead of Mike's."

"And?" she prompts.

He gives a shrug.

"I used to content myself with the idea that in other timelines- in universes we'll never see- we're happy together. Living that life," he says, the wistfulness in his voice brings her equal measures of joy and pain.

"Do you still think about it now?" she asks.

The smile that's been far away suddenly lights up his face, his eyes taking on a slight sheen.

"Now, I find contentment with the fact that we share our lives in this timeline. . . Even if it's not the way either of us would have hoped, a few years ago."

She feels the relief and affection well within her, cursing her altered hormones for the fact that she can't even begin to hide how overcome she is. She's uncharacteristically grateful when Tom pulls her in for a hug, burying his face in her hair.

"You can't live the rest of your life berating yourself for mistakes we both made, B'Elanna. We've spent too much time doing that already."

She clutches onto his leather jacket, her tears pooling at his chest before slowly gliding down the worn material.

It's a strange moment for her, she'll reflect later. The only Klingon trait she's ever coveted being the absence of tears ducts. But feeling Tom murmur into her hair, his arms protectively around her, she cries for the first time without giving a thought to things she used to want but doesn't possess.

Eventually, she pulls away and embarrassment finds her.

"If you're this good with emotional Klingons, you're going be an amazing god-father," she laughs awkwardly.

"Well, I kind of hope she takes after you rather than Mike. . . I'm not always sure how to take it when I crack a joke and he just stares at me."

This time she laughs genuinely, leaning against the convertible. She knows first-hand that her partner's silences can sometimes be off-putting.

"Just tell me isn't that quiet in bed."

The inappropriate quip earns him a frown and sharp smack in his stomach, but it nevertheless transitions them from their emotional conversation.

Or so B'Elanna thinks, before Tom sighs beside her.

"This is the part a few months ago when you would have made a joke about my own bed partner."

She turns to him, surprised he's bringing up the subject on his own.

"I wasn't going to mention it," she says, eyeing him cautiously.

He gives her a pointed stare, and she makes a face, realizing she's been caught.

"I wasn't going to raise it until I made you comfortable," she modifies. "But then the conversation left the safe confines I'd intended."

"Good to know I can still surprise you, Torres. After all these years."

She smiles briefly, but then a concerned look replace the amused one.

"Yesterday's briefing was . . . tenser than usual. Between the two of you."

He nods, unable to deny it.

The tension that exists between himself and Kathryn normally appears one-sided, Tom knows. Janeway plows in public as though nothing ever happened, and the more she does so, the more he freezes her out. He's always polite, respectful, but all of his promises to remain friends have been buried; sinking in the ocean of his anger and lingering resentment.

He never smiles at her. Doesn't even hold eye contact if he can help it. After the month of trying- putting her hand on his shoulder on the bridge only to feel his shoulder tense at her touch- she stopped all overt attempts.

Still, the briefing the day before is the first time she's shown any outward sign of strain or anger toward him. Cutting him off with a harsh reprimand when he and Harry derailed into their normal banter.

"I think Seven's report that we're going to be entering another starless expanse is taking a toll on everyone," he ventures. "We haven't exactly faired well with spatial voids."

The thesis that a certain commanding officer faired the worst of all them in such areas remains tacitly understood, B'Elanna giving Tom a knowing look.

"I'm not going to push, but you really need to talk to her at some point."

He gives a dismissive gestures, his face bitter and cynical in a way that makes her vaguely uncomfortable.

"Tom," she pleads softly, locking onto his gaze with hers.

"What would I say?" he demands, the frustration in his voice shifting to mocking cheer. "Thanks for the memories, Kathryn. I hope you didn't lose a nacelle in your haste to put distance between the two of us."

B'Elanna's undeterred by his glibness, even if frustrated by it.

"You could talk about her decision," she points out. "You could see if see if she's changed her mind."

"Kathryn Janeway doesn't change her mind," he retorts bitterly. "And even if she did, it wouldn't matter. I can't forgive her for the way she ended things. The fact that she - she. . . "

"Pushed you out an air lock?"

"Yes!" he spits, not reflecting on the confirmation.

She regards him softly, and he immediately he knows what's coming; studying the engine with interest, as though it's the first time he's seen it.

"Did you put up a fight when she did it?"

He presses his lips into a thin line. His self-accusation from only minutes earlier finding new purchase, even if he can't voice any affirmation of it. He's just too angry at the woman who left him. The woman he's still in love with.

"It wouldn't have mattered if I'd begged her," he says instead. "She'd already made up her mind. She wants to die alone in her command chair."

Any number of retorts of varying in harshness spring to B'Elanna's mind, but she knows Tom well enough to realize she's not going to get much farther with him. Not today, anyway.

"I'd like to think that when Miral comes, you'll be able to stand being in the same room with each other. . . I picked the two of you as god-parents, after all, because I thought you represented the parts of humanity she should strive for."

As Tom's face softens, B'Elanna registers that she's dealt him a low blow. But if pregnancy has taught her anything, it's to use the tools still available her. As unsavory as guilt tactics might be, her new ability to use them effectively sometimes makes up for her not being able to see her own feet anymore.

"You know, motherhood is going to suit you," Tom teases darkly, and after a long silence.

"I'd like to think so," she responds, smiling sweetly.

He feigns a deflated sigh at her obvious manipulation, and she can't help but laugh at his dramatics.

"So, you're going to talk to her?" she asks, maintaining a lightness in her voice this time.

"I don't know about that," he says quickly. "But I'll resolve to try in other ways."

It's a victory, if a small one. And B'Elanna inwardly smiles as she readies herself to leave the holodeck.

"I think I'm going to follow the Doctor's advice. . . Maybe take a nap."

"Have some banana pancakes before that?" Tom gently teases.

"I don't know," she murmurs, looking contemplative. "I've had the strangest craving for gagh lately."

When Tom snorts, B'Elanna glares at him. He quickly holds up his hands in surrender.

"Gagh is a great source of protein- really good for the baby."

Her angry look only dissipates slightly; he hears her grumble as she calls for the arch. Just before the doors, the heavy shuffling of her feet abruptly stop.

"Tom?" she calls.

"Uh huh?"

"How much should I publicly humiliate the old man for sinking your car in a lake?"

Standing over the dead engine, Tom smiles hugely. Their affinity for dark and inappropriate humor is something he and B'Elanna have always had in common.

"Don't stop until you see tears," he calls in response.

He doesn't have to look up from his work to know that she's smiling as she exits.

. . . . .

Though it's the the third time her ship has slid through space without stars streaking by her window, it bothers Kathryn just as much as it did five years earlier. The darkness outside of her viewport feels consuming; like she's slowly submerging in a well of black ink in the Maestro's studio.

She's deep in thought when the door to her ready room chimes. It takes several hails before she snaps out of her reflections.

"Are you alright, Captain?" Tuvok asks, approaching her desk with a raised eyebrow.

"Fine," she dismisses. "I was just thinking."

She suspects her recent silence hasn't quite escaped his attention , but she also thinks he won't call her out on it. It's just not Tuvok's way when it comes to their friendship.

"Is that the results of the recent security drills?" she asks, gesturing to the PADD in his hand.

"Yes," he affirms. "The results are. . . unremarkable."

His characterization throws off for any number of reasons, chief of which being that he has come into her ready room to deliver a report he himself thinks unimportant.

"Something on your mind, old friend?"

His face relaxes, though just barely. On any other member of her staff, it would be a soft smile.

"May I join you?" he asks, gesturing to the chair opposite her.

She nods, her expression curious as he moves to sit down.

"I am concerned about this morning's briefing," he announces.

"The senior staff's just a little undone by our current region of space," she assures. "Try not to worry about their edginess. Their attention will snap back to normal levels when we clear the region in two weeks."

He pauses, looking uncomfortable. Or at least, uncomfortable for Tuvok.

"It is not the senior officers I'm worried about, Captain. . . It is you."

She freezes, caught off guard though part of her knows she shouldn't be.

"I'm fine, Tuvok."

He pauses only momentarily this time, choosing to disregard her denial.

"You have not been yourself lately. You have been uninterested in the ship's operations. . . Inattentive at times."

She blushes furiously, realizing that he's calling her out, even if indirectly, for having tuned out for a large part of the morning briefing. She'd thought she recovered well when Harry asked her a question when she wasn't paying attention. Obviously, not well enough.

Worse, if Tuvok noticed, it's entirely possible others did. Chakotay and the Doctor. Likely Tom, too. That is, if Tom bothered to look up from his customary focus on the table even once during the meeting.

This last part tears at her with new pain. Tom has actually been meeting her gaze consistently the last few weeks, however hesitant and halted his reactions toward her. His new efforts should be a relief, but instead it's only made things more difficult on her. His thorny silence and taut looks were somehow easier.

"Captain?" she hears Tuvok prompt, and she realizes she's drifted again. She can't exactly make any denials now, no matter tempting they were a few seconds earlier.

"I'm sorry," she says weakly, fighting the urge to bury her head in her hands. "You're right. I haven't been myself lately."

"I assume this has something to do with Lieutenant Paris?"

His voices the inquiry gingerly, but still her face becomes an expressionless mask.

"I'm able to separate my personal life from my duties," she responds coolly, a note of warning in her voice.

He falls silent, studying her face as he considers his next statements. As he does so, her discomfort grows. She hates it when he does this; looks at her like she's his tactical console, gleaning data with a glance and making a few easy interpretations.

After a few beats, he averts his eyes to the starless expanse outside her window, and she unconsciously relaxes in her chair when his scrutiny shifts away from her.

"When Commander Chakotay and Seven of Nine briefly ended their relationship last year, the Commander was not himself."

The unease she feels mixes with curiosity as to where this new line of thinking is going. It occurs to her that she could stop him here, but doing so seems churlish. Tuvok rarely takes liberties like this with her.

"No," she agrees. "He wasn't. . . He was short with people, not as compassionate or considerate as he normally is."

"He was also easily distracted," Tuvok adds.

She arches an eyebrow, but doesn't say anything to prompt his continuation.

"Several times while you were not on the bridge," he continues, "I noted his attention drifting. He was often silent, appearing contemplative and consumed with worry."

"You never reported that you had concerns about Chakotay's functioning during that period.'

She doesn't mean it as a criticism, but Tuvok seems uncomfortable at her remark. It isn't like him to deliberately overlook such things, no matter his personal loyalty.

"I assumed the Commander was plagued with regrets about ending his relationship," he admits. "I did not think bringing his inattention into question would solve anything."

"But?" she prompts.

"When Seven of Nine was injured, the Commander ceased to function as an officer. He was. . . debilitated by his emotions."

The knot in her stomach coils further at his last words. In the back of her mind, she wishes she could drum her fingers or tap her foot without Tuvok noticing the nervous energy.

"It's difficult to see someone you love injured," she allows warily. "The fear can be paralyzing."

As she speaks, Kathryn remembers Tom's bloody form materializing in Sickbay, cradled by B'Elanna. The wave of nausea that spread through her body, almost knocking out her own legs. The flood of memories of older wounds finding her again, despite her attempts to lock them away, the last dozen years.

"Commander Chakotay was not involved with Seven of Nine," he observes. "He was not at risk of losing his romantic partner."

"He still loved her," she murmurs, still engrossed in memories recent and not, "the status of his relationship with her didn't diminish his feelings."

"Precisely," Tuvok concludes quickly. "In fact, I believe the sense of regret the Commander felt made his state of mind worse."

At this, her attention snaps immediately back to their conversation, her eyes narrowing. She realizes that he's baited her, and she doesn't like it.

"Careful, my friend" she warns, steel in her voice. But to her surprise, he doesn't fall back on boundaries of protocol.

"Kathryn. . . I do not know how to serve you as a friend and officer if you do not allow me to raise this concern."

Profoundly surprised, she simply looks on, unable to find either the words or will to further bar him in this.

"You ended your relationship with Mister Paris because you believed it compromised your command decisions."

"A romantic relationship isn't a luxury I can afford given its cost to my objectivity. I would expect you of all people to understand that."

"Yet it is a costly 'luxury' you grant to everyone else, the Commander included."

She lets out a low breath. This is precisely the debate she had with Chakotay before she ended things with Tom, and though it's an unpleasant one for her, she knows at least she can win it.

"It's different for me than for Chakotay," she breathes, shaking her head.

"What's good for the goose is not good for the gander?"

She isn't sure what's more absurd; Tuvok falling back on an ancient Earth colloquialism, or the fact that he's picking this particular one.

"I don't think it has anything to do with geese and ganders," she chuckles darkly, giving into the urge to bury her face in her hands. "I think it's about Captains and First Officers."

"You believe your position as Captain is uniquely compromised by a romantic relationship?"

"Yes."

"And you believe your ending that relationship compromises you less?"

"Yes."

"So, I can assume upon terminating your romantic relationship, your romantic feelings for him went away?"

She pauses, realizing he's begun to dig a new hole under her, and trying to find a way to avoid the pitfall.

"It's only been a five months," she dodges. "These things take time."

"Have your feelings for him at least lessened? Has the affection you feel for him dissipated at all in the face of ending romantic relationship- the fact that you no longer maintain even a friendship?"

She wants to tell him that they have dissipated. Feels torn between conflicting desires to shout angrily at him or turn away in embarrassment. But she can't bring herself to do any of those things, least of all to lie to him.

"No," she responds in a soft voice, closing her eyes as she does so. "They haven't dissipated."

"And so. . . you still incur the cost of a romantic relationship . . . without the benefits?"

However hesitantly Tuvok voices the fact, the reality of it hits her like a cruel joke. A cruel joke she played on herself.

Attempting to steady the breaths that suddenly feel dangerously shallow, she pushes away the memory of locking eyes with Tom in her ready room weeks earlier. His gaze soft, even longing, as she declared Mike and B'Elanna husband and wife.

The pain on his face, likely mirrored in her own eyes, when he quickly turned away from her, congratulating Mike.

"I guess that is. . . an accurate assessment," she voices weakly. Almost choking on the words.

The pause is brief but in it her admission hangs heavily in the room. For a few moments, Kathryn begins to feel like the thick darkness outside has begun to bleed into the room, slowly staining the air, the walls, and everything in between.

"Perhaps it would be more ideal if you were not human," Tuvok finally observes. "Better for your position if could detach your readily from your emotions. . . But you are human."

She chuckles. A brittle, mirthless sound that seems to crack in the air.

"And here I'd thought you'd forgiven me for not being Vulcan."

For a few beats he holds her gaze steady, forcing her to see his sincerity, his openness, before he even begins to speak.

"I'm not suggesting now, nor have I ever thought, that your strong emotional commitments are a point of weakness."

It's an absolution that only Tuvok can convincingly offer. One, only weeks earlier, she would have pushed away.

"Was I less effective then. . . as Captain?"

"During your relationship with Mister Paris?"

She gives a slight nod, her eyes swirling with both hope and fear, transfixed on his dark features.

"You were content."

"That's not what I asked," she quickly points out.

"No," he allows. "But your effectiveness as an officer is tied to your well-being, as it is for most individuals." He pauses, gathering the description in his mind before concluding, "you seemed more resilient. Less deterred by obstacles. And though you spent less time attending to ship administration, I do not believe anything on board suffered as a result."

This absolution strikes her painfully, unlike the previous one. And in the back of her mind, the faint memory of a pushed way thought (only a year previous but now so very distant) looms like a specter; its vague form dark as the space outside the ship.

_Nothing seems to have fallen apart since she slept with her pilot, _Voyager_'s warp core still functioning and the stars streaking by at their usual pace. No ship-wide emergency has been declared, the Captain having suddenly developed a sex life. _

When Tuvok finally leaves her, she remains in her chair for sometime, pushing through her feelings to focus on the stack of PADDs on her desk.

Not once, however, does she look up to peer out at the space outside her window. The familiar emptiness she would see there- the familiar thought that it will be gone soon enough- courting a kind of contemplation she will not allow herself to descend into.

. . . . .

In the last seventy-two of their travel through empty space, engineering takes advantage of the downtime, tinkering with the power relays to boost efficiency. The maintenance, as anticipated, knocks out the holodecks and replicators. And for the first time in almost a year and half, Kathryn Janeway finds herself wandering the halls of her ship in state of coffee deprivation.

When she enters the mess hall and sees Tom slowly rocking Miral, she freezes. He hasn't seen her, too absorbed in their god-daughter to see anything else. She can just as easily turn around and leave the way she came; resigning herself, here, now, to this distance that stretches between them, this silence that chokes any room they occupy simulteanously.

But even in her most cowardly moments, this just isn't a thought she can bear.

"I didn't realize you still had her," she says softly.

He jerks slightly at the sound of the familiar voice before his eyes shoot to the child he's just lulled into sleep.

"B'Elanna's hand is still healing from that plasma burn. I offered to take her for the night while Mike is on duty."

She approaches the couch he sits on slowly, watching his face for signs that she should abort the attempt now. Whether he's less angry these days or simply soothed by Miral's sleeping form, she doesn't know, but either way he fails to tense at her presence.

"I'm surprised B'Elanna didn't fight you," she says, sitting down slowly on the couch. A good distance between them. "I offered to watch her for the night last week and she reacted as though I'd threatened to make Vorick Chief Engineer."

He chuckles softly, still looking at Miral rather than her.

"Must be something about Klingon mothers," he quips. "Though this time I don't think the Doctor left her with much of a choice. She can't grip anything for another twelve hours. . . Not that I don't think she contemplated ways of picking Miral up one-handed."

The soft smiles on each of their faces shift slightly when he angles his face upward, meeting her gaze.

"It's been a while," she observes eventually.

"It has," he allows, his unease now evident.

"I'm sorry that I expected your friendship . . . after. Perhaps I should have given you more space."

He lets out a ragged breath, his face rueful.

"I'm not sure how much space would have been enough," he admits. "I think there were a couple months when being in the same quadrant would have felt too close."

He doesn't voice it to her pain, though obviously it does. He studies her face carefully as she angles her chin away from him. It's one of the few times he's been able to see any obvious pain when it comes to him.

"I understand," she replies eventually. "I don't expect you. . . to forgive me. Or to forget."

"Forgetting is impossible," he concedes. "But I don't know that forgiveness is. . . I would like to think it's possible that one day we'll be friends again."

She nods, not trusting herself to respond. Trying, desperately, to find relief in the idea that a man who not long ago gave himself- all of himself- to her readily might once again find the trust to share a small sliver of his life.

They sit for sometime in silence, the two of them watching a baby that easily could have been his, had things turned out differently. A warm, breathing reminder of forked paths, as well as of hope and new beginnings.

"B'Elanna said you prayed," she says at one point, half surprised that she's voiced the thought out loud.

"What? When Miral was born?"

She flushes with embarrassment. Both because of her sudden statement and because he apparently doesn't even remember what she's talking about.

"When you were held captive," she corrects, her throat feeling dry. "After you were shot."

He racks his memory of those events, his recollections jumbled, disorganized, and vague. He remembers stepping in front of B'Elanna when the guards tried to take her away, a sudden, all-consuming pain after that. Waking up in Sickbay later to find Seven there and Kathryn gone. But what exists in between is a distorted mass of images and sounds.

"It's mostly blur," he says, looking contemplative. "Did she tell you what I prayed for?"

Her mouth opens and closes once, regret that she started this conversation clearly etched across her face. Dimly she thinks maybe the old Christian idea of purgatory is right; considering the dark thesis that she's been plunged into eternal limbo between the mortal world and hell without her knowledge.

"You prayed about me," she informs him. "You prayed that you would see me again."

Out of her peripheral vision, she sees his face soften. No ridicule or rueful expression. Just pain. And regret.

"I don't remember saying anything," he admits. "But I remember being terrified that I wouldn't get to tell you again how much I loved you."

His face twists into a slight smile, and he turns his body slightly toward her before continuing as she looks on in with interest; it's the first time since she ended things that a smile he gave her wasn't forced.

"I was strangely afraid you wouldn't find your Prixin present," he confesses.

Despite the pain of the situation, her own lips tug up at the memory of finding the leather jacket he'd hidden away in her own quarters. It was buried under all of her civilian clothes in a box; the leather the same color as his own jacket, the lines sleek and made for her silhouette.

"I found it," she tells him. "It's . . . perfect."

He smiles sadly before shifting Miral's sleeping form in his arms. It's a distraction, his only distraction presently, from the feelings of longing swirling within him.

"When you pray now. . . do you still pray for the same things you used to?" She can't meet his eyes when she asks the question, but it's something she also can't contain.

He casts his eyes around the darkened room. The empty galley he still pictures Neelix in; the officer and friend he still misses, no matter how much time elapses.

"Sometimes when I wake up I do," he admits. "Or when I'm alone in my quarters."

She remains still, waiting for an admission. Not sure if it's worse if it doesn't come or if it does.

"Sometimes," he continues, "I miss you so much that it feels like I can't breathe."

The tears have steadily filled her eyes grow in number, threatening to push through her eyelashes. Still, she finds her voice, though she'll never be sure if the question she lends it to is an act of courage or one of complete self-flagellation.

"And when you don't miss me?"

In the brief quiet that ensues, the sinking feeling that's been trailing them tirelessly for weeks abruptly locates them, encircling them and dragging them down. Tom feels his chest constrict, the arms that cradle Miral going numb.

Closing his eyes, he cannot see the open, shattered expression of the woman who sits less than a meter away. When he begins to speak, his words are slow to reach each of them, as though the sound has to first make its way through meters of water; their bodies both drifting down rapidly, the surface disappearing from view.

"There isn't any moment that I don't miss you. . . It's just that now, I pray that all the love I feel for you will go away."


	7. Like a stone II

**Chapter 7: Like a stone (II)**

As Paris' elegant strides are interrupted for the fifth time by the jerky, ill-timed movements of his dancing partner, he swallows his frustration.

"You're not paying attention to the rhythm," the pilot chides gently. Far more gently than he would like.

"I'm trying," Chakotay defends, taking an irritated tone he'll quickly regret. "This isn't as easy for me as it is for you."

The younger man gives a kind of snort, letting out a long breath that comes out as a "pfffff" sound.

"A lot of things come more naturally for me than you. But you seemed to have managed, despite that, over the years."

The Commander favors the Lieutenant with a retaliatory glare for the barb, his poor humor only made worse when he manages to step on Paris' feet yet again.

"Why don't we call it a day," the older man declares, breaking away from the awkward half-embrace.

"We've only been at it for half an hour!"

"I'm tired, Paris. No good can come from any further _instruction_."

Despite the dripping sarcasm with which Chakotay voices this last word, Tom manages to calm himself with a few deep breaths. He knows that this is a stressful time for the other man, not to mention that it took everything Chakotay had just to swallow his pride and ask for help with this.

"You're never going to be ready to dance at the wedding if you keep quitting on me. We've only gotten two hours of lessons in over the last three weeks."

"We still have a month," Chakotay begins, shaking his head. "I can catch up."

"Or you'll just stomp all over your bride's feet at the reception. Either way. . ."

Frustrated dark eyes lock onto resolved blue ones, but after a few seconds the former glance away in silent acknowledgment. The final surrender signaled with only a nod.

Tom calls for the music to replay, the two men resuming their uncomfortable proximity as Chakotay struggles to set the step for his partner.

"Thank you for doing this," the Commander says eventually. "I know that I haven't been the most. . . patient student."

As they circle the holographic dance floor, Tom cocks his head slightly to the side in acknowledgement.

"Well," he replies, "I suppose when you first met me I was a little. . . taxing. Guess we can call it even."

The score was even years before this, both men know, but Chakotay appreciates Tom's subtle tact nonetheless. This kind of personal trust, however measured, isn't something that would have been possible between them, a few years earlier.

"So what does Seven think we're doing?" Tom asks, after they've fallen silent for the length of most of a song.

"Scuba diving in the Caribbean. I told her I was giving you lessons."

"Giving _me_ lessons?" Tom echoes incredulously. "I hold seven scuba certifications on three different planets. What could you possible be teaching me about diving?"

The Commander gives a feral smile, his lips parting to reveal white teeth that look even brighter in contrast to his bronze skin.

"Told her you were having some trouble learning the finer points of buoyancy compensators." Chakotay pauses (a momentary silence that Tom knows from experience is dramatically setting up an insult), before continuing, "I explained that it must be the enormous weight of your ego, always dragging you down in the water."

Tom rolls his eyes, though not actually annoyed. However sharp the two men's banter may appear at times now, it comes from a very different place than it used to.

"So, what's your bride-to-be doing this evening? Just waiting around for you to teach the resident megalomaniac how to doggy paddle?"

Chakotay barks out a brief laugh, his mischievous grin giving way to a beaming smile.

"No, I think she's having dinner with Kathryn tonight. Likely going over the ceremony."

As the mention of the ship's Captain, Chakotay subtly observes Tom for signs of pain and longing. Both have been consistently evident on the younger man for months, though in an ever-changing ratio.

This time, however, the pilot betrays nothing. Schooling his features given the proximity of his erstwhile lover's best friend.

"I'm still kind of surprised Seven wanted an old Terran ceremony," Tom admits.

"Me, too," Chakotay replies immediately. "But it turns out that her parents said the same vows as her maternal grandparents, and they as their parents. . . I think part of her is reaching out to the family that she's lost."

"Not lost," Tom breathes, shifting his arm slightly. "Just. . . a bit removed."

Chakotay smiles again. Dimmer than the last, but genuine nonetheless.

"That's what _I_ said."

Tom shrugs, allowing himself to be turned as Chakotay performs a step he was incapable of, only a week earlier.

"Great minds," Tom drawls. "Besides- probably better that there's a little distance. When my oldest sister Moira got married, my grandmother tried to guilt her into wearing the dress she wore at her own wedding."

"People do that?" Chakotay asks with astonishment. Though human, he didn't grow up on Earth and so isn't privy to the more antiquated traditions of subcultures there.

"In some traditionalist circles it's done," the blonde man sighs. "Even more bizarre in my grandmother's case, since she and my grandfather didn't exactly have a happy marriage."

"So, what did your sister do?"

"Well, both my sister Kathleen and my mother tried to moderate, but then things started going south and my father declared our household 'officially neutral'."

"Leaving Moira to fend for herself?"

"Yep," Tom answers with a rueful smirk

"Did she wear the dress?"

"No. Moira held her own, to her credit. But it was all kind of. . . an ordeal."

"Well, as someone now rapidly approaching his own 'ordeal', she has my sympathy."

Tom shakes his head, clearly recalling his sister's enervated state in the months leading up to her wedding.

"I'm pretty sure Moira wasn't the one deserving of the most sympathy."

"That honor reserved for your brother-in-law?" Chakotay ventures, smirking a little as the song they've been dancing to ends.

The two men pull away from each other, Tom regarding his dancing partner with a look of complete conviction.

"No," the pilot corrects sternly, "her bridesmaids."

. . . . .

"I do not understand the custom of wearing white at one's wedding."

Standing next to the Seven at the computer, Kathryn sucks in a deep breath. She's willing to help Seven through as much of this as she can, but she'd really rather not go into theses on virginity and purity, however antiquated or even offensive.

"You should wear whatever color you like, Seven."

The former drone nods, dismissing from the screen the image of the wedding dress her aunt, her last tie to her family, sent her in the recent feed from the Alpha Quadrant.

"I am unsure how to proceed," Seven admits.

"Nothing like trying things first-hand. Just pick a few things to replicate from the database. You can try them on in my bedroom."

The blonde woman nods again, her fingers gracefully moving over the replicator as it springs to life with energy. When the garments have finished materializing, Seven gathers them up carefully, eyeing them with unease the entire time.

"I will endeavor to make my selection quickly," the young woman says warily.

"Take your time," Kathryn assures. "I'm here to help as long as you need me, and B'Elanna should be here any minute as well."

When Torres finally strides into Janeway's quarters an hour later, she finds Kathryn on the couch in the living room, looking exhausted.

"Sorry I'm late. Vorick needed me to look over a strange problem that popped up, and Mike couldn't get Miral settled."

The Captain favors her Chief Engineer with a steely gaze. The same one she has used to stare down the Kazon, the Borg Queen, and countless enemies since.

After a few beats, the engineer looks back at her with a slowly spreading smirk.

"I also may have walked here as slowly as possible," B'Elanna admits, settling on the couch next to Kathryn. "And taken my time drinking my double raktajino before I set out from my quarters."

"Traitor."

B'Elanna chuckles and Kathryn rubs at her right temple. From Kathryn's bedroom, a loud expel of air is heard. Not a sigh exactly. But something that approximates it for Seven of Nine.

"How many dresses is she on?" B'Elanna asks, her voice low.

"Nineteen," Kathryn breathes.

"Nineteen?" B'Elanna mouths, only to be met with a dismal nod from Janeway. "Guess that Borg drive for perfection never really left her."

Kathryn opens her mouth to reply, but is cut short by Seven appearing at the threshold of the room.

"That's a nice color," Kathryn comments, summoning a reassuring smile.

"Pretty material, too," B'Elanna chimes.

Rather than looking at the two women who've been waiting for her, the blonde looks down, regarding her own form with apparent scrutiny.

"It is . . . efficient."

Never has the former drone voiced the descriptor with such pronounced unease.

Standing up to examine Seven closer, Kathryn understands the younger woman's distress. The dress she has on is simple as well as form-fitting, but there isn't anything particularly memorable about it.

The fact that this last part makes her unhappy causes a newfound confusion in Seven, adding yet another level of stress to her already filling mind.

"Why don't we put it aside for now?" Kathryn offers, going to the replicator again. "Keep looking in the meantime?"

Seven agrees with apparent relief, coming to stand beside her former mentor as petite fingers dance over the console.

"There's an Italian designer from Earth," Kathryn informs her, "he began creating clothes sometime in the twentieth century, but the fashion house he founded lasted until the start of the Third World War. . . His dresses might be of some interest."

"The database has stored the designs of a long-dead maker of clothing?" Seven asks, obviously skeptical of this use of resources.

"Art is art," Kathryn murmurs, scrolling the offerings to make three selections.

Seven collects the materializing dresses with measured interest, if still the same skepticism. Her eyes catching on a small patch of fabric attached to the inside of one, as she moves to drape them over her arm one by one.

"Armani," Seven reads neutrally.

B'Elanna smiles a little. An understanding crossing her face that Seven doesn't see and wouldn't understand even if she did.

"See if they do anything for you," Kathryn says, shooing Seven back into the bedroom. "We'll be right here."

As Seven disappears, Kathryn replicates a bottle of wine and two glasses. Bringing the liquid comfort with her to the couch, she resumes her previous seat next to B'Elanna.

Watching Kathryn pour the thick red liquid, B'Elanna fills with compassion and something else. Taking a moment to gather the courage to voice her present thought as her companion hands her a newly filled glass.

"Tom replicate Armani for you, too?" B'Elanna asks finally, and though she already knows the answer. There's only so many ways a woman could encounter an ancient designer of clothing, after all.

Kathryn nods, her eyes glued to the bedroom door even though her thoughts now fail to center around Seven.

"He got tired of waiting for me to pick out something," she confesses. "Had the first dress waiting for me when we had dinner plans and I was already running late from the bridge."

"He always did have good taste," B'Elanna remarks, a wistful look on her face.

Patting B'Elanna's knee, Kathryn smiles at her. A look of genuine affection, even if tinged with some amount of pain.

"The best taste," Kathryn declares. Her eyes falling on the coffee table in front of them as a contemplative quiet settles over the room.

In the pause that ensues, B'Elanna fights the urge to embrace the woman next to her. An impulse that consumes her with an intensity that surprises her, given both her own personality and the relative age of the friend and CO sitting next to her.

Maybe it's motherhood that's done this to her, B'Elanna muses. Or maybe it's just the number of years they've been together now. The profound joys and sorrows they've shared, their quantity and quality easily filling a much longer span of time.

Either way, the younger woman finds herself letting out a deep breath. Wishing, as odd as the desire is, that she could pull Kathryn to her; soothing away the older woman's pains in the same manner that she does her infant daughter's.

The engineer's thoughts are interrupted by a sound from the bedroom; a frustrated expelling of air, coupled with the tell-tale sound of fabric hitting the floor forcefully.

B'Elanna sighs. Kathryn cringes. Both settle a little heavier into the couch.

"You know, this is all his fault," B'Elanna says darkly.

Her couch companion hesitates, looking confused.

"Tom's?" Kathryn puzzles.

"Chakotay's," B'Elanna corrects. "If he hadn't proposed, we could be relaxing on the holodeck right now, just like he's apparently doing with Tom. . . Instead of sitting here, doing this." The half-Klingon adds, her face deadly serious, "he should really be punished."

Kathryn taps her fingers on her wine glass. Remarks, too acid to be voiced, swirling in her head as she considers the irony that a woman who was once so unselfconscious as to prance around in a glorified catsuit is now spending a night trying on more than twenty outfits.

"There's bound to be a punch bowl at the reception," Kathryn points out glibly. "We could always hold his face down in it until he drowns."

B'Elanna's face becomes contemplative, seeming to genuinely consider the image of Chakotay's shallow grave, before finally shaking her head.

"Too easy for people to discover his body," B'Elanna remarks.

"Too many witnesses for Tuvok to question," Kathryn piles on.

Another frustrated sound from the bedroom. The two women exchange a long look as yet another hope of their making an escape is cast aside, cascading to the floor.

"Chakotay wants to the have the wedding on the holodeck," B'Elanna continues. "Some place outdoors. And knowing him, there's bound to be a lake or a river or something."

"We could take him for a nice walk prior to the ceremony," Kathryn says, following the line of thought. "Tell him his two closest friends just want to spend one last hour with him."

"Get him out there by himself before hitting him over the head and tossing him into the water."

"Make sure to weigh him down with rocks first," Kathryn adds. "Wouldn't want him waking up and making a swim for it."

As Seven tries on the last dress Kathryn replicated, the two women in the living room smile darkly as they sip their wine. Both quietly contented with the image of Chakotay's sturdy form slowly sinking to the bottom of a watery abyss.

. . . . .

"Scared yet?"

The reply is delayed by surprise. A discomfort that is temporarily hidden.

"No."

"Not even a little?'

"I am unafraid."

Tom smirks at his companion's characteristic composure as they slide into the turbolift. Still, he feels the need to needle Seven just a bit more.

"Only two weeks until the big day," he cautions. "The time to steal a shuttle and make for the nearest nebula is dwindling away as we speak."

Seven's posture becomes even more rigid. She knows that Tom is teasing her, but his jokes are hitting an uncomfortable topic. She has no desire to call off her wedding, but she worries sometimes that Chakotay does. He has left her before, after all.

The fear, likely irrational, that the man she's come to love will suddenly leave her again now clawing at her as she goes about her day. The familiar worry, pushed down forcefully over the course of the last year, resurfacing with a vigor that terrifies her whenever she stands still.

As Tom sees a shadow pass briefly over Seven's face, his mind catches up with his mouth.

"You aren't having second thoughts, are you?"

"No," Seven replies flatly.

"Something else the matter?"

Seven hesitates until Tom catches her gaze, blue eyes peering into even bluer ones.

"Sev?"

"I-"

_Attention all senior staff: report to the briefing room immediately. Repeat, attention all senior staff: report to the briefing room immediately. _

Seven's mouth snaps shut at the sound of Chakotay's announcement. The concerned frown staying on her friend's face long after she has smoothed away her own look of distress.

The two stride into the briefing room only a few paces before Harry. Chakotay and Tuvok are already seated at the table, both men watching stoically as the ship's Captain pours over a PADD with her Chief Engineer.

Janeway's somber expression is enough to concern even Seven, and as Tom glances questioningly at the engineer who is too absorbed in her work to meet his gaze, Seven arches an elegant eyebrow at her fiancé.

Though Chakotay doesn't speak, he gives her a reassuring look. A professional necessity, Seven has come to understand, but one that likely doesn't reflect his own feelings.

"Thank you for coming," the Captain begins, "and I apologize for the short notice."

As she speaks, she begins slowly pacing the room. An unconscious display of nervous energy, her staff has long-since deciphered, but typically the only one that slips through the cracks of her command mask.

"Two hours ago, Lieutenant Torres concluded a diagnostic that was launched in light of the unusual power fluctuations we've been experiencing. The results are conclusive, and the problem more profound than we anticipated."

Turning the meeting over to Torres with a nod, the Chief Engineer explains that what _Voyager _has been experiencing is the early onset of the ship's power grid failing, the foreseeable result, if unchecked, being the eventual cascade failure of every major system.

"The only way to avert a cascade failure," Torres concludes, "is to rebuild the grid from scratch." Seeing the paling faces of her coworkers, she hastens to add, "it's something that we can actually manage well, given our current supplies, but it's going to require powering down everything on the ship."

"The overhaul can't be achieved even if we power down the impulse engines?" Paris asks, Torres immediately shaking her head.

"I'm not just talking grey mode," the engineer elaborates. "We're going to have to shut down everything, even life support."

Everyone around the table looks deflated, albeit in degrees that vary according to temperament or species.

"We're going to have to ground _Voyager_," Kim says, with obvious concern.

It's a statement rather than a question, but nevertheless Torres nods as the Captain and Tuvok continue to observe the rest of the staff.

"How long?" Paris asks finally. When the silence that has engulfed the room tips solidly into the oppressive.

"Given that normal duty rotations will be suspended, I think we can get it done in under twenty-five days," Torres replies, her characteristic confidence evident. "Maybe twenty if we really press, but it would mean saving parts of the overhaul for after re-launch. Something, quite frankly, I would strongly advise against."

Before the engineer even finishes the last part of her statement, her Captain, quite predictably, begins shaking her head.

"If we're going to this," Janeway declares, "we're going to do it right the first time." She resumes her slow pace, though this time with more purposeful direction. "Mister Kim and Seven, you'll begin scanning for a suitable planet immediately, pursuant to Tuvok's recommendations regarding strategic concerns and Lieutenant Torres' requirements for the overhaul."

As she continues, she circles the table, locking eyes with each and every officer. Reassuring them that this setback is only temporary. Demonstrating with her posture, if not directly with her words, that she trusts them all to handle this.

"Chakotay," she continues, her tone lightening a bit, "I'd ask that you get together with B'Elanna to create a duty roster that will allow the crew to enjoy our temporary. . . accommodations, even as repairs proceed."

The Commander nods, grateful she's taking R & R into consideration. A new possibility, pleasant despite the backdrop of the ship's rather serious situation, now privately occurring to him.

"And Mister Paris. . ."

As the Captain's eyes fall to the helmsman, the attention of every occupant of the room shifts to the exchange now transpiring. The interest palpable, even if hidden in some cases behind stoic expressions.

"Aye, ma'am," the pilot acknowledges.

The reassurance he can't communicate with anything but intent blue eyes presently returned by grey ones that refuse to blink. A professional understanding, a trust in times of crisis, that has somehow survived everything else. The complete absence of doubt on either side.

"If you put one single scratch on my ship when you land it, it's coming out of your holodeck privileges."

A few snorts. One stifled chuckle. And quickly, a sense of normalcy replacing the foreboding feeling that's loomed over all of them during the course of the meeting.

"Don't worry, Captain. The Paris honor includes a money back guarantee for all services."

. . . . .

Preparations go faster than any of them could have hoped. Within six days, Harry and Seven locate a hospitable planet that exceeds both Tuvok and B'Elanna's expectations. And four days after that, _Voyager _finds itself in low orbit of an M-class planet that will become home for the next three weeks.

"At least we'll be able to mine a lot of the minerals from the surface," B'Elanna murmurs, after a final briefing, and looking over a geological survey of the continent they intend to land on. "The western coastline is replete with most of what we need."

"Do we need to replicate any new mining equipment?" Chakotay asks casually, not looking up from his own work.

"Only a portable microtomographic spectrometer," B'Elanna replies, "since it looks like ours is damaged"

"Damaged?"

"No idea how," the engineer sighs. "The last time we used it was over two years ago, and it's been in storage ever since."

Hearing the exchange, Janeway freezes in her seat. Remembering, with acute clarity, her tumble with the ship's mining supplies just under two years ago, after she'd unwittingly intruded on Tom and Seven in the cargo bay.

Over the conference room table, Tom shoots her a sly smile. She lets go of the breath she's been holding as he only winks at her, remaining silent as the other occupants of the room slowly file out.

"Thanks for not giving me up," Kathryn says ruefully, once they're alone in the room.

"I gentleman never finks on a lady," Tom declares, crossing his arms.

"Also part of the Paris honor?" she smirks.

"Maybe. Or perhaps just prudence, not ratting out the woman who assigns replicator rations."

"Very wise."

The banter is comfortable and familiar, even if it quickly falls apart. They've conversed more and more like this over the last few months, but they still haven't made any move to spend time alone together as friends.

When things ended, Kathryn assumed it was only a matter of time. But as this painful thing continues to stretch between them, she's realized that she might have been wrong in that assumption.

"Are you sure you're okay with this?" he asks.

His obvious concern for her, personal and here completely unmasked, stirs feelings within her that she'd prefer to ignore.

"I'm fine."

He doesn't press her on the reply in the way that Chakotay likely would. He knows that she'll reveal only what she sees fit, and if pushed will quickly put her shields up. Knowing, beyond that, the generic reply she offers here is likely the truth, rather than deception. She's stronger than even the crew gives her credit for. But perhaps not as strong as he himself once estimated.

Eased by his unquestioning expression, she relaxes in her chair. Allowing herself to slip out of the posture of her rank, even if not completely.

"Maybe, once upon a time, I would have been troubled by the idea of grounding the ship," she elaborates. "But now. . . I guess it feels like a chance for reprieve rather than some kind of defeat."

He smiles at her. Not the toothy 'Paris grin' he wore while they bantered, but a softer version that's far rarer, and reserved for just a few.

"Reprieve sounds nice," he says, as they both get up from the table.

"Yes," she confirms firmly. "But first there's still the small matter of my helmsman safely landing my ship."

He doesn't reply to the good-natured challenge, following her onto the bridge with a wry smile as they both become absorbed with the ship's forward viewer. The large screen dominated by a coastline growing in size, as well as an ocean, so incredibly blue, teeming beneath them with unrelenting vigor.

. . . . .

As Tom strides with purpose across the open expanse of the field _Voyager _rests in, his eyes follow the line of the cliff one hundred meters away, the land dropping away dramatically to reveal the churning waters of the ocean they observed in orbit.

Putting distance between himself and the ship, he nods to passing crewmembers as he tries to tame his thoughts. Attempting, for the life of him, to push away the memory of Kathryn standing behind him on the bridge while _Voyager _quickly slipped through layers of atmosphere the day before. The small hand on his shoulder steady, unflinching, even as muffled gasps rang out across the bridge; the ship descending down hard over the ocean, only to level off abruptly as he expertly perched it a safe distance from the rocky precipice.

"Beautifully done, Tom," he'd heard her pronounce softly.

'Tom.' Not 'Lieutenant,' or the more frequent 'Mister Paris.'

The feel of her touch, in so many ways, the same as when they first set out in the Delta Quadrant. And in so many others, so entirely different.

As he passes one last cluster of crewmembers, he forces himself to smile at Naomi and Samantha Wildman. The rapidly maturing girl tugging her mother along with a zeal that reminds him of the days when she was easily occupied with Trevis and Flotter stories.

As he gets closer to the large grouping of trees he's been approaching, the noise of the buzzing repair crews and the droves of crewmembers fall away. He ducks his head, stretching his limbs when he catches sight of Seven darting- almost fleeing- into a particularly thick patch of trees that quickly obscures her from view.

He hadn't planned on company for this outing, just wanting to get away from the ship and indulge in a run across a stretch of land that isn't dependent on a holodeck for its existence. Overwhelming this desire, however, is his recognition that something is clearly wrong with his friend. Perhaps the same something that has left her distracted and quiet, these last two weeks.

"Sev?" he calls, entering the trees.

There's no reply, but he knows she can't be out of hearing range. She wasn't all that far ahead of him when he doubled his speed to follow her.

"Seven?" he calls again, his throat contracting with concern.

When he finds her, it's because he sees her rather than hears hers. She's perched on a large rock situated between two trees, her hair pulled up in a style that she hasn't worn in sometime. And though her frame is completely still, he can see the tears streaming down her face from where he stands, almost ten meters removed from her.

He doesn't say anything as he approaches her. The crunch of leaves beneath his feet the only sound until even that stops, Tom pulling himself up on the rock beside her.

They stay like for several minutes. The former drone who rarely shows dramatic signs of emotion now openly weeping next to him.

"What does a guy have to do to make you laugh?" he'd teased her once, years earlier.

"I laugh," she informed him, in her characteristic monotone.

"I've never heard you," he retorted immediately.

"I do not do so often," she conceded, "as it's reserved for those who are actually funny."

He'd howled with laughter then. Taking the barb as a challenge, just as she'd intended it. Resolving, then and there, and with increasing vigor as their friendship later deepened, to make her laugh as loudly and as often as possible.

The memory succeeds at biding forward a dull feeling of peace within him, even as the same friend sits in torment only a few centimeters away.

"Tis very true, my grief lies all within. And these external manners of lament are merely shadows to the unseen grief that swells with silence in the torture soul," he recites, his voice casual as he looks straight ahead. Staring at the parts of the ship and the ocean beyond that he can still glimpse, through the obstructing branches.

"Richard II," she pronounces evenly, and despite the tears still spilling from her eyes. "Act IV, Scene I."

Tom gives a smile that's as sad as it is proud. His eyes shifting away from the ship from which they've both apparently fled.

"Spoken by the king himself," he adds, kicking his foot at an imaginary insect and then looking at her. "So. . . What troubles you, fair cousin?"

As if by cue, Seven's tears stop their descent. Her back straightening slightly and her face taking on the same severe expression she used to sport when first freed from the Collective.

"I need to call off the wedding."

Tom's eyebrows shoot up, but it's only the reaction he allows himself.

At this point, he knows better than to press too hard when entering into an emotional conversation with Seven. Her open anger is one thing. Frustration or annoyance another. But circle in too quickly on pain or any sign of weakness she's allowing, and she pulls away hard.

It's a trait that, now painfully, reminds him of someone else.

"Do you mean you no longer wish to have the ceremony planet-side, like Chakotay wants?" he asks carefully.

"No. I do not wish to have the wedding at all."

He bites back a sigh at the firmness of her reply. Pulling his long legs up slowly and folding them under him, he weighs his approach paths.

"Do you not love him?"

"My feelings for him remain unchanged."

"But yet you've changed your mind about marrying him," he states softly. "Why is that?"

"It is irrational to engage in a project that is doomed to fail."

He steals a quick glance at her, catching a glimpse of the unchanging, harsh expression and determined set of her mouth.

"Chakotay loves you as much you love him," he soothes. "And you've both considered this decision with all the seriousness it deserves. Your life together isn't going to fail."

As he says it, he knows he's granting her an assurance that no one can. But still, despite all the possibilities that loom, he believes it.

With the part of him that isn't broken and hurting- the part of him that each day hopes a little more- he believes it.

"It will fail because almost all relationships are doomed to fail," she informs him sharply.

Well, that was clear enough, he thinks darkly.

And as he allows himself to close his eyes, he considers for a moment that she sounds just the way she used to when she first came aboard. But, of course, in all the ways that matter, she doesn't. Because now her words are infused with a fear that is very much the product of her own experiences, and thus so acutely and poignantly human.

"Not all relationships fail," he shakes his head.

"Not all," she says, as if he' s tried to twist her words deliberately, "but almost all. Making the very pursuit a waste of energy."

He opens his eyes, forcing himself to gather his thoughts enough to cut through her concealed panic.

"The strong ones survive," he insists, dodging the empirical issue she's raised. "Your friendship with Kathryn has been a constant throughout your development as an individual. And I would like to think that my friendship with you has entered into that category as well."

"Platonic relationships," she declares, her voice becoming neutral and losing the air of hostility. "Not the same as romantic relationships. As you yourself have pointed out to me."

He pauses, his silence a concession to her point, but before he can volley another reassurance she's plowing along at an unhurried clip.

"The two examples you cite are nevertheless helpful. As individuals, I would consider you both unfailing loyal. Determined. Compassionate, if not without certain failings. . . Yet despite all of this, the romantic relationship you shared failed painfully, and both of you have yet to recover."

The pronouncement comes as crushing weight to his chest. After all this time, Seven still has the same ability to hone in on the truth, striking it with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. The reality that he can't deny even one part of her observation leaving him to choke out breaths like a man who's just been struck and thrown overboard.

"Relationships are difficult, not impossible," he manages. "And you can't compare your relationship to anyone else's. Including mine."

Here, he looks over at her, allowing himself to really scrutinize her face. The thin line of her lips, the subtle despair in her eyes, all striking him as suddenly familiar in a different way. His vision quickly blurring with Kathryn's face, firm if despondent in his quarters. And before that, B'Elanna's. Her voice sounding serene despite all that was happening in and outside the Flyer.

All masks, Tom thinks now, attempting to claw through his painful memories enough to focus on the conversation at hand. Reminding himself, too, as the private realization comes to its inevitable conclusion, that he needs to continue breathing. Consciously focusing on his intake and expulsion of air.

"You can't be afraid of what might happen in the future," he says now, firm and ignoring all of her previous protests about probabilities and likelihoods. "Everything changes, Seven. _Everything_. But you can't run from that."

As he speaks, he remembers a similar conversation he had, perhaps prophetically, with another woman. Recalls the exact words he uttered when cautioning her against fighting the forces of change.

_You wouldn't believe how many people drown out there, trying to swim against the tide because of their panic._

"Even if you do run from it," he continues, shaking his head as if to dislodge the echo of his own voice, "the change will find you. It doesn't need your consent."

When he finishes, Seven remains silent. Her face a little softer, the glitter of tears returning to her eyes. But whether these things are signs that he's gotten through to her, he doesn't know.

He doesn't speak again, even when she threads her long fingers through his longer ones. And when she finally gets up, favoring him with an appreciative look, he doesn't ask her anything further. All that he can do at this point is give her space to think as he privately hopes for the best.

"Tom?" she says, already retreating from him, but turning back around to meet his gaze.

"Yeah, Sev?"

"Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince, and flights of Angels sing thee to their rest."

Even as the affection swells within him, he summons a dull, dumbfounded expression.

"It's afternoon, not night, Sev."

As he expects, the joke earns him a smile, though not a laugh. And as she turns from him, picking her way back through the trees, he watches as she emerges in the light. The sunshine catching in her impossibly blonde hair as she moves steadily back toward the ship and the coastline behind it.

After Seven's gone, Tom considers following her back, abandoning his plan of going for a run. But the idea is quickly rejected as he realizes the thought of returning is one he finds entirely unattractive.

He finally rises from his perch atop the rock, setting off in the opposite direction as Seven. After a minute of walking, he breaks through the dense population of trees, coming to a clearing even larger than the one _Voyager_ rests in.

To his surprise, only one side of the plain is lined by trees, the other bordered with the same rocky coast he thought he'd left behind. Admittedly, he's never been very good with directions on land, and it certainly doesn't help his slight disorientation that when he set out in the trees, trailing after Seven, he wasn't paying any attention to where he was going.

All the same, he decides he has more than enough time to find his way back if he gets lost, and so he stops at the edge of the clearing, preparing himself for the activity he has forestalled.

As he braces his arm against the trunk of a tree, he stretches until he feels the joints of his hips pop and the muscles of his legs begin to strain. He swivels around, completes similar stretches. Basking in the patient knowledge of what is to come before eventually setting out across the flat horizon, the ocean remaining to his right.

It's been a while since he allowed himself to run like this. And while his surroundings begin to blur to dashes of green on one side and blue on the other, he pushes away thoughts of Seven, memories of Kathryn. Tucks away pains remembered and anticipated as, soon enough, he's consumed only with the motion of his body and the steady beat of his own heart in his ears.

Despite how long it's been, his legs carry him swiftly and steadily. The thud of the ground beneath his feet and the heat pulsing down on his shoulders both seeming to welcome him, like friends who've been left to contentedly await his return. Pushing himself even farther, a slow sense of anticipation begins to build in the pit of his stomach.

It's always been the part sometime after the eighth kilometer that he craves; that point when he's winded and having to push through the fatigue to keep going. The exhaustion seeping out of his pores, cleansing him of everything that sticks to him, clings to him, throughout the day.

It's then, with the sweat dripping down his body and his chest expanding and contracting, that something releases in him. Because as the beads run down his cheeks and the salt stings his eyes, it feels exactly like he's crying.

And as strange as it is, this is the moment he wants to hover in and that he set out in the first place to find. This is the feeling he used to chase when he was young and heard his father's angry voice echoing in his head.

This is the brief salvation he used to grope for in the middle of the night, stumbling from his bed, when the images of three dead officers filled his eyes even when he pressed them tightly shut.

As perspiration fills his eyes, tracing the contours of his cheekbones before dripping down his jaw, that feeling- that familiar sting and release- takes hold of him. He pulls in a deep breath, feeling his chest expand as far it will go. And letting it go, the expelled air drifting out as he continues to cut across the landscape, it feels like he's letting out a sob.

When the sensation ends, his breathing evens out and his vision clears. The ocean that he could so easily drown in, the cliff he could easily jump off of, now coming back into view, and every fiber of his being feeling utterly bereft.


	8. Linger

**Chapter 8: Linger**

"Careful with that pie. Wouldn't want you to have to squeeze into your trousers tomorrow."

The victim of the taunt gives a muted glare. His irritation, however slight, more than a little encouraged by the fact that he's not as trim as he used to be.

"You aren't going to dump me because I'm not the same trim First Officer you hired, are you?"

"Maybe. If I can find someone who looks better in the uniform than you do. . . But I wouldn't hold my breath on that last part."

The compliment, even if delivered on the heels of a jest at his expense, causes Chakotay to favor Kathryn with a smile.

"You're so easy," Kathryn teases, laughing as he predictably preens at her last remark.

"Sometimes I'm easy," Chakotay cautions, "and sometimes I'm just a tease."

"I'm going to hope, for Seven's sake, that the two tendencies exist in an optimal ratio."

Her friend snickers at this last remark, further sprawling on her floor, and his arm almost catching the mug filled with whiskey as he wriggles in an entirely undignified manner.

Golden light streaks through the windows of Kathryn's quarters, falling over Chakotay's writhing body, though it's well past 23:00; the thirty-six-hour day of the planet they've set down on defying their standard system of time keeping.

If Kathryn turns around on the couch, looking at the figures far below the ship, she can see her crew milling about in steady droves. Some of them are working, but others are merely taking in the sky; soaking up the rays of an alien sun before returning to the ship they've all called home for years.

Despite their apparent appreciation for the chance to lay foot on ground, well over half of the crew have opted to remain living on board during the repairs (with all the entailed inconveniences), rather than living in the temporary shelters available to them.

"I'm in," Harry had declared, upon B'Elanna noting that the conduits typically used for life support could easily be opened to allow for the ventilation of breathable air from the outside, and portable generators used for the most basic power needs, once the first three days of repairs were completed.

"You'd really want to stay aboard?" Kathryn had asked him. Worrying that her Ensign's distress at setting down- his despair at further delaying their return to the Alpha Quadrant- was getting the best of him.

"I like my own couch and my own bed," Harry had shrugged simply.

Presently sitting in her own living room, the natural light filling the room not seeming nearly as odd as it did their first week here, she looks at her First Officer with abrupt concern.

"Careful of the alcohol," she chides, in a voice slightly louder than need be, moving the whiskey safely to the coffee table.

The warning only makes Chakotay laugh louder, his arm flailing directly over the spot the mug occupied only seconds earlier.

"I think we've had enough," she announces, looking at him with a critical eye even as she fails to contain her own smirk.

"Enough pie? Or enough whiskey?"

"Both."

He nods, eventually sitting up as his chuckles slowly subside.

"So what is the lovely Seven of Nine doing this evening?" Kathryn asks, extending him her arm as he clamors to his feet.

"She said she was spending time with a friend," Chakotay sighs. "I assume it's Tom. But if her vagueness on the subject is any indication, I have absolutely no interest in what he's planning for her."

She snorts, her decidedly tipsy state- perhaps bordering on drunkenesss- only permitting humor at the mention of the ship's pilot. Or at least, only permitting humor in this context.

"You should be kind to him," she tsks.

"Because he's the only one who knows how to fly the ship straight?"

"Because he is the giver of whiskey," Kathryn reminds, pointing to the mug.

The seriousness with which he pronounces her statement strikes Chakotay as funny, setting him off again as Kathryn watches in semi-disbelief.

"Have you always been this much of a lightweight?" she asks incredulously.

"I, madam, am not a lightweight. I am a _heavy weight_."

For a brief pause, Kathryn allows herself to the bask in the beauty of this feeling. Her best friend, in his impaired state, having absolutely no idea the barb for which he has left himself wide-open.

"In more ways than one," she declares with a smile, and to his immediate air of deflation.

"Maybe I should been out running with Tom, these last two weeks," Chakotay sighs.

"Tom's been running?" she asks, surprised.

He nods, though not particularly interested in the line of conversation.

"I've never really understood running as a hobby," he admits, and almost to himself, as he curls up on the opposite end of the couch.

"How so? You box. Engage in other martial arts."

"I'm not saying I don't understand the need to exert one's self," he allows with a shrug. "I just don't see the appeal of running. . . No matter how far you go, you tend to end up right back where you started."

In a sober state, replies concerning his own need to channel his inner frustration into pummeling imaginary opponents, rather than real ones, would occur to Kathryn. But here and now, she only gives a small tip of her head before regarding her empty cup for a while.

"You're getting married tomorrow," she says eventually, and with a smile that hides her mix of feelings at the statement

"I'm getting married tomorrow," he echoes, his own grin as bright as the sunshine lighting up the room.

"I'm sorry that repair schedule delayed the ceremony," she offers, but before she finishes the sentence, he's already waving her off.

"Neither of us minded," he replies quickly, not commenting that Seven had even been relieved, at the time. "And I'm just happy we'll have the chance to have it here, on solid ground."

As he looks dreamily out the window, Kathryn contemplates both his words and the familiar expression he adopts.

She and Chakotay have never thought of exploration in the same way, and she knows, when all is said and done, he'll likely leave this way of life behind for a quiet one planet-side, once they've returned to the Alpha Quadrant. It's a difference between them that used to perplex her, but one that she now quietly accepts with an inward smile. Knowing her thoughts, a few years earlier, would have been painful here. An endless series of 'what-ifs' plaguing her ; the remaining mental images of another planet, long abandoned, and a metal shelter that stands alone in a dense patch of trees.

Looking across at her friend, she feels a genuine sense of happiness for him. But this feeling, however profound and sincere, still leaves room for her own sense of loneliness. And so, too, bids forth a slow sense of regret, even if one not concerning the man who presently joins her.

"If the internal sensors were working, we could spy on Seven," she jokes, in order to distract her mind from her present thoughts.

"I think it's better that I can't," Chakotay laughs. Adding, with a rueful smirk, "you weren't at Harry's bachelor party. You have no idea what depraved possibilities lurk for Seven at the hands of Tom's planning."

He's exaggerating for effect, Kathryn knows, but this return to silliness suits her just fine.

"I wasn't at Harry's bachelor party because _no one invited me_," she accuses.

"It was a bachelor party!" he defends.

"And yet B'Elanna went!"

He pulls a face, pretending to be caught at something, and despite her attempt to appear stern, she starts to laugh.

"Could you imagine Harry's face if you had shown up?" he chuckles darkly.

"The good Ensign would have survived."

"_Now_ he would have," he corrects. "But two years ago?"

Kathryn considers his point, her concession signaled with a wave of laughter.

"I guess, by comparison, your bachelor party is pretty sad," she muses, looking around the quiet quarters.

In truth, this is exactly what he wanted, and he has expressed as much to her. But seeing the contemplative expression that appeared on her face a minute earlier, he knows better than to drop their light banter too soon.

"Well . . . I had hoped for Orion slave girls. But there's only so much even you can do while the holodecks are down."

"No slaves girls," Kathryn smirks, reaching for the whiskey again. "Only one woman here, and she's definitely not a girl anymore."

The last part is voiced in a tone that courts a kind of darkness, and Chakotay waits to reply until she meets his gaze again.

"Not a girl," he admits slowly. "But still as beautiful today as the day I met her."

She opens her mouth to reply as her eyes take on a sheen, but then decides against it, unable to find the words. Falling into a companionable silence as the sun continues its slow descent outside her window, they allow themselves to linger in the warmth that has sustained each of them for nearly a decade.

. . . . .

As Seven glances around the empty cargo bay, taking in the simple picnic she's constructed, she thinks back to one of her first dates with the man she's about to marry. And in spite of the all feelings of worry generated by her present dinner companion, she fills with a sense of peace, as well as a wave of relief.

"Where did you just go?" the Doctor asks, his nervous curiosity at her distraction tempered with a slight smile.

"Not far," she replies, reaching for the juice that sits to her right.

A long silence ensues after this' one that leaves both parties uncomfortable.

As pleased as the Doctor is that Seven invited him here, he doesn't know what's appropriate to say and what isn't. It's a problem he's often grappled with, but one that he's rarely admitted as openly as he does now. And even here, only to himself.

"I almost canceled the wedding," she pronounces stoically, her eyes on the checkered cloth they perch on.

"What?" the hologram stammers. "Why?"

"I was afraid," Seven says, but without making any move to elaborate.

"Afraid of getting married? Afraid of marrying Chakotay?"

She searches him for any sign of optimism at this last question, but finding none, her attentions return to the picnic below them.

"Afraid that all relationships fail," she admits. And though she busies herself with the straightening the napkin in her lap, the Doctor's gaze doesn't drift form her.

"I'm sorry I abandoned our friendship," he says, when she inevitably meets his eyes. "I was. . . very selfish."

It's an apology she's had coming for more than two years, and one that she's ready to accept. If only she can figure out how to push through the fog of hurt that still clings to her.

"You were," she pronounces evenly. "But the nature of humanity is often to consider one's own needs before those of others."

It's a kind of compliment as well as an echo of her own mistakes. The exact exchange of sentiments that passes between them, however tacitly, being she one could not have with anyone else aboard the ship.

"Human nature can surprise you with its flexibility," the Doctor cautions, and taking on a tone of pedagogy that he knows is no longer suitable with Seven. "Even in the midst of sorrow and torment, it's capable of producing art and beauty. Hope. Compassion."

"Forgiveness," she adds, tracing her glass with her finger.

"Forgiveness," he echoes, the ghost of a smile appearing on his face.

The Doctor's voice is hopeful if tinged with sadness. And although Seven's own hope is far more measured, she allows herself to give into the comfort of a presence she's dearly missed.

. . . . .

As Tom looks on at the water beside them, he takes in a deep breath. Giving himself the brief mental space to appreciate the beauty around him, in the midst of all that is going on.

The waters of the small lake they're next to are more tranquil than the ocean they left behind, just a kilometer away. The temperature is still cool, the sun having yet to crest in the sky, and the sunlight remains a gentle glow; a subtle promise of the warmth that will come later.

A strong breeze stirs his hair and the moment passes; he turns his attention to the proceedings as Kathryn begins to speak again.

"And do you, Chakotay, take Seven, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, to love and to respect, until death do you part?"

"I do."

Kathryn smiles softly, turning from her friend's glassy brown eyes to the woman who stands beside him.

"And do you, Seven, take Chakotay, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, to love and to respect, until death do you part?"

As Seven's shoulders begin to shake and her head ducks down, Kathryn looks briefly at Chakotay. Believing the woman he loves to be overcome with joy or even fear, Chakotay grasps Seven's hand, trying to make eye contact with her and assure her of his presence.

From his stance on the other side of Chakotay, angled toward the couple, Tom is the first to meet Seven's eyes. And the moment he sees her face, a smirk immediately appears at his mouth.

Seven isn't crying. She's laughing.

Clueing in, Kathryn and Chakotay both look on questioningly. And Tom explains in a low voice that somehow manages to still carry, that Seven is laughing at 'to have and to hold'. And though Tom doesn't fill them in on the off-color joke he made to bride regarding this line, just two days earlier, the reality of what is transpiring still hits them, eliciting growing rumbles of laughter from the wedding party. It dawning on each of them, one by one, that standing in front of all of her friends and loved ones, and on the day of her own wedding, the former drone has discovered something that has eluded her for years; the appreciation of a dirty joke.

As Kathryn bites her lip and tries to regain her composure, Tom looks at her struggling and lets out a large clap of laughter that proves to be her undoing. The understanding of what's happening spreads out from there; the laughter fanning out steadily, as row by row, the assembled crew shares in the joke.

"Well, that's a first," the ship's Captain declares, when it looks like the members of the wedding party have stilled enough to move on.

"Let it be noted," Tom jokes, looking at Kathryn, "when you asked Seven if she wanted to be with Chakotay for the rest of her life, she laughed in your face."

"Thanks, Paris," Chakotay grumbles, despite his smile and Seven's renewed laughter. "Good to know you're on my side."

Several minutes later, the ceremony finally resumes, the wide smiles that have materialized remaining long after the laughter has stopped.

. . . . .

"I'm pretty sure Chakotay's going to kill you later," B'Elanna teases, sitting across from Tom at the reception.

"Thankfully, I think he's a little occupied right now," the pilot replies, nodding with a smile to where Chakotay and Seven dance gracefully, several meters away.

B'Elanna's brow furrows as though she's looking at schematics, her arms reflexively crossing in front of her.

"He's always been a complete klutz when it comes to music," she puzzles, shaking her head. "I wonder how he finally learned to dance."

Tom sips his beverage, regarding the smile that's yet to leave Seven's face.

"No idea," he replies casually.

Just as B'Elanna begins to study Tom's expression, Harry slips into the seat next to her.

"Hey," Harry greets with a smile. "Who's ready for wedding cake?"

"I'm always ready for cake," B'Elanna declares. "Even if Chell _has _refused to name the cake's ingredients."

"I'm sure it will be fine," Tom assures, dragging his attention away from the dancing couple. "Even Neelix wouldn't sneak Leola Root into a cake."

"Could be in the filling," Harry cautions.

"Chell's wedding day surprise to the happy couple," Tom laughs.

"I can just see Chakotay now- trying to force a smile on his face as he chokes down his first bite."

B'Elanna's last statement is said in a low voice, the image designed to produce dark amusement. And as the three fall into conspiratorial laughter at the joke, the years seem to melt away for each of them.

Harry, like always, is the last to recover. And as Tom watches the younger man with continued amusement, B'Elanna's husband, ready to hand their restless daughter over, signals her silently from where he sits, two tables away.

"Duty calls," B'Elanna announces, with a rueful smile.

"Save a dance for me," Tom calls.

"If my daughter's mood will allow it," she replies, retreating from the table.

It's only a minute later that Harry looks at Tom with an apologetic smile.

"You should go dance with your wife," Tom says, already knowing what his friend is about to say. "Before she decides to trade you in for someone better."

"Like who?" Harry asks, smiling as he stands.

"I don't know. Me? . . . In those sorted holonovels, it's always the best friend the spouse cheats with."

The Ensign pauses, seeming to weigh the possibilities.

"Nah," Harry dismisses. "Jenny likes a full head of hair on a guy."

The joke earns Harry an exaggerated scowl from his best friend, and as he walks away, Tom begins to scan the crowd around him.

Not far out of his eye line, Kathryn stands talking with Tuvok. The two are deep in conversation, and as Kathryn gestures in animated way that Tom recognizes, he guesses that she's telling a story about her family or the Academy. Tom continues to watch as, after particularly long description from Kathryn, Tuvok voices a one-word response that makes his companion snort.

The smile that has appeared on Tom's face freezes when Kathryn catches him watching her, holding his gaze long enough to send him a questioning look as her own smile briefly falters. Noticing the exchange, Tuvok promptly excuses himself, and after a moment of hesitation, Tom rises from his seat to make his way to where Kathryn stands.

"Should even ask what the three of you were laughing about over there?" Kathryn asks, after an awkward pause, once he reaches her.

"Probably not," Tom smiles, realizing she was watching him, too.

Kathryn's own smile falters after a moment, and looking around, Tom theorizes that they probably have half an hour before Chakotay and Seven begin opening presents.

"Want to go for a walk?" he asks.

She appears surprised, but still agrees. It's the first time he's made any attempt to spend time alone with her, and even as he extends the offer, she fills with equal measures of hope and nervousness.

They set off slowly, tracing the lake's edge, and for the first few minutes neither speak. Tom squints into the still rising sun, his face distorting with pleasure as the light strikes his cheek.

"It's lovely here," Kathryn says, in a wistful voice. "I can see why Chakotay picked this spot for the ceremony. . . Too bad they won't be able to revisit it."

"They will," Tom murmurs, causing Kathryn to give him a questioning look. "My wedding gift is a holoprogram of this place," he explains.

She smiles a little, thinking it a fitting gift, coming from him.

"Is it just of the lake?" she asks, genuinely interested.

"The lake. The clearing _Voyager _sits in. . . Everything that stretches in between."

"That sounds lovely," she says, her smile widening. "I'm sure they'll love it."

"Hopefully as much as Seven liked your gift," he replies, giving her a sly look.

"That dress did look lovely on her," she sighs, overwhelmed with relief that he recognized, even in a small way, that the thought of him has stayed with her.

"Flawless," he concludes, with a slight shake of his head.

"Good thing you taught Chakotay how not to step on the matching shoes, while they dance."

He pulls a face, a little disappointed that someone figured it out, but not all surprised that she was the one to do so.

"What gave it away?" he asks, causing her to roll her eyes.

"He would have shut off a holo-instructor midway through the first lesson," she says, knowing her friend's temper. "And isn't as if he would trust anyone else to keep it a secret."

The last part comes as a surprising statement, but after reflection, he concedes her thesis with a small shrug. They resume their slow walk, dropping their banter about the friends who've just married. Neither one quite courageous enough to address the thought that it could have been their own wedding, had events unraveled differently.

When the lull in conversation grows stale, Tom thinks back to his talk with Seven, ten days earlier; wondering if she's yet to confide her fears in Chakotay as he silently wishes her the trust to do so. The same trust he tries to summon now, circling a body of water with a woman he's loved and cursed simultaneously.

"We never talked about Justin," he says, closing his eyes to block out the sun that is now directly in front of them.

Perhaps, too, to block out the shadow of pain he is certain his words will bring to her face.

Had he kept his eyes open, he would have seen that her face became expressionless instead. She's had decades to mask the ache of this wound, after all.

"Nothing really to say,'' she says casually. "It was a long time ago."

It's a lie. And Tom thinks that she has to know that he knows it. At least, he has to know if he's finally asking. Because as much as they shared, as many stories of woe and joy that they confided in each other, they've never talked about the first man she intended to marry. Or the fact that she watched him, along with her father, sink to an icy grave.

Which isn't to say Tom didn't know. Far from it. Before he even met her at Auckland, he had heard, among the many tales of Kathryn Janeway his father told, the hushed voices of his parents in the living room of his family home. Listening several nights in a row from the landing, only a teenager then, as his father expressed concern for a young officer who was the sole survival of an accident that claimed the lives of two of her loved ones. His father' normally stern voice softening when he confided in his wife that he thought the young woman would never recover.

Walking next to Kathryn now, Tom remembers the pain he felt then, and for a woman he hadn't even met. And going back over the last year in his head, his own studious silence on the issue when they were together, the scorn that he used to direct toward the woman next to him turns a bit inward.

"Yes. . . a long time ago," Tom says finally, and adopting the same expressionless face Kathryn already wears.

As they return from their walk, both forcing smiles on their faces as they mingle once more with the crew, Seven watches the pair carefully.

"See something interesting?" Chakotay asks, wrapping an arm around her waist. He follows her line of sight to Tom and Kathryn, making a sound in the back of his throat when he takes note of the faint air of pain that clings to both of them. "I used to wish things would just get back to normal for those two. But now I'm not even sure what that would look like for them at this point."

Seven sees her husband's point, and has had the same thought. But still, looking at Tom standing next to the woman he avoided months earlier, she feels a strange optimism. She meets Chakotay's patient eyes. Eyes that will remain patient, even when she finds the ability to voice fears he's yet to hear.

"One never knows," Seven says, raising an eyebrow. "Humans are surprisingly flexible."

Chakotay smiles, kissing his wife's bare shoulder, as they remain in their private moment just a bit longer, amid the quickly gathering crowd of friends.

. . . . .

Approaching the holodeck, Kathryn ticks away the minutes of yet another sleepless night in her head. It's one of a thousand, in here years out here, and as she feels the ship's deck plates pulse beneath her feet, she wishes it brought her the same comfort it once did.

This same sensation of her ship at high warp is one she longed for two months ago, when _Voyager _first touched ground to a planet they would remain on for only a few weeks. The time on the planet seeming to be over before she knew it, and in spite of her worry that it would drag on and on for all of them.

And now, week by week, as she's slipped back into her normal routine of bridge shifts and hours delineated by only a chronometer, she has begun to miss the feeling of wind and the smell of fresh air. Feeling strangely nostalgic of the way her quarters looked when aglow with golden light rather than starscape.

When she reaches the entrance, she's surprised to see that the holodeck is occupied. There's no privacy lock engaged, but even before she asks the computer who the occupant is, she can easily guesses, given the program running.

Entering Sandrine's, she inhales the musty scent of holographic wood, dust, and stale salt air that drifts in from the nearby port.

She can't remember the last time she was in the program, Tom having, in her mind, abandoned it for his garage program, and before that Fair Haven and Captain Proton. Wracking her brain, she can't remember him mentioning going to Sandrine's during all that time. And she wonders, watching him sit at the bar with shoulders hunched, if he never stopped coming here, but simply stopped talking about it.

Keeping this first love, this link to his past, as a private retreat. Removed from even her, when they were together.

"Couldn't sleep?" Tom asks, when she stops just two meters shy of the bar.

"Seems to be going around," she sighs.

He considers the liquid in his tumbler as though the cause of his insomnia lies at the bottom of the glass.

"It took me two weeks to learn how to sleep with sunshine and moonlight streaming through my window," he admits. "And now that it's gone, I'm not sure how I ever slept without it."

She lets go of a ragged breath as he pushes the stool next to him out with his leg. Even as he offers her the seat, he doesn't look at her, and she isn't sure whether she should take the invitation or leave him to his apparent unrest.

He doesn't push her one or way the other, giving her no apparent sign. But after weighing her options, she decides she'd rather stay here, in this bar filled with ghosts, than return home to her empty quarters.

When she's settled in the stool, he leans over the bar, producing another tumbler and a bottle of whiskey. He pours her about two fingers, replacing the dust covered bottle before he resumes his perch next to her.

She sips the liquid slowly, feeling the burn of real alcohol fill her mouth, and decides to savor the sensation for a minute before turning her mind over to the inevitable analysis of how the liquor was produced. Given the bottle's appearance, it's obviously part of the program, not something he brought with him from his quarters. Sitting in the empty bar, she tries to turn off the part of her brain that spins out worries from this new revelation.

"You overrode the replicator safeguards in the holodeck," she says, though not sounding disappointed or even upset.

"No," he says slowly, and after sipping his own whiskey. "They were disabled by fluke accident. Didn't realize it until I went to pour myself a night cap."

She searches her memories, trying to remember any ship-wide event that coincides with the appearance of his stash of real alcohol.

"When the holodeck parameters malfunctioned," he supplies, seeing her come up empty. "We only paid attention to Fair Haven since it was running. . . And holding us captive. But I did some poking around later. . . Realized that a few baseline subroutines were damaged."

Her expression is one of surprise. The events he's citing were roughly four years prior, much earlier than she would have expected.

"So, you did some poking and. . . found the loop hole?" she asks tentatively.

"No," he repeats, returning to his previous statement. "I found the loop hole by accident and then did some poking to figure out how it happened." He continues, looking around at the beer taps and bottles on display, "it's only in this program. . . And apparently only the Irish whiskey."

A dark smile appears on her face here. The thought occurring to her that it's all seemingly appropriate.

"Does anyone else know?" she asks.

"I'm the only one who uses the program anymore," he says, though not sounding at all sad about this. "So, it's kind of been my little secret. . . Admittedly, when Miral came, I told Mike. Decided if anyone deserved to have a real drink, it's a man dealing with Klingon temper tantrums."

She rubs her face at this, a small chuckle breaking free as she considers what Tom's conversation with B'Elanna's rather stoic husband must have been like.

"I should she really tell Tuvok about his," she says eventually, and as though she's trying to convince herself rather than warning him.

He shrugs, regarding her for a brief time before diverting his gaze once more.

"The replicator loop hole has been around for years," he points out casually. "And despite a certain pilot passing out whiskey on occasion, everyone has shown up sober for their shifts and nothing seems to have fallen apart."

Tom's words remind her of something Chakotay said once in jest, and though there a dozen angles she should consider in making this decision, she sets it all aside for the night.

When the conversation drifts to an end, she considers challenging him to a game of pool, but dismisses the thought almost out of hand. The idea of doing something adversarial with Tom will bring more discomfort than nostalgia to her at this point, not to mention the many unfortunate metaphors regarding games that spring to mind as she sits beside him.

"We never talked about Justin," he says. And this time, she allows her surprise that he's raising the subject (again) to show.

She reaches over the bar to fill the glasses they've already drained, and as she does it, he considers the possibility that she's simply stalling before she changes the subject or shoots him down once more. She places the bottle on the bar rather than replacing it, and after taking two long sips, she puts down the glass and looks at him.

"When Mark and I got together, we didn't talk about it," she begins to explain. "He was there for the aftermath. . . Saw me in pieces. But he never pushed me talk about it, and at some point it just became a taboo subject."

He doesn't ask any questions. Surprised and grateful that they're having this conversation, even if they're having it too late. And as she looks at him, her face honest and open for the first time in a way he's yet to see, he meets her gaze without blinking. Willing to take whatever she'll offer. Willing to give whatever she'll allow him to.

"After that, I stopped talking about it with anyone. . . I think my sister worried when that happened, but other people, officers. . . your father. . . seemed relieved. I decided it was easier if I left it behind, never looked back."

"Easier for who?" he asks softly.

"Everyone," she breathes. "Or maybe just me. . . I don't know anymore."

He considers the weight of her confession as she ducks her head and sips her whiskey. Not forcing eye contact, he turns his gaze to his own glass, though the liquid filling it has now lost its appeal.

"Hard to tell when not looking back becomes running away," he muses out loud, and taking stalk of his own painful past.

She doesn't reply at first, parsing out competing thoughts while he waits.

"Funny thing about running," she says, turning to face him and looking rueful, "no matter how far you go, you tend to end up right back where you started."

He lets out a sigh at this, but covers her hand with his own just the same.

"When you ending things. . . It wasn't just about what my father said to you- our relationship jeopardizing your objectivity?"

It comes out as half statement, half question, even though he already knows the answer. But perhaps he needs to her say out loud. Confirm for him that leaving wasn't just one of the thousands of command decisions she's had to make since the Caretaker's array.

"I told myself it was," she admits. "And I would be lying if I said that fear wasn't tied up in it. . . But seeing you bleeding in Sickbay. Being on the bridge on and hearing that one of you had been shot during that hostage crisis. . . I promised myself once that I would never feel that kind of fear again. "

"You were in love after Justin," he says now , letting himself push her just a little.

"Mark is a philosopher," she reminds him. "I suspect part of the allure of our relationship was that I never had to worry about him coming back to Earth safely."

It's a thought that's honestly never occurred to him before, and he wonders when it was that it first struck Kathryn.

"When you told me in my quarters that it was because of your command, were you telling me a convenient lie?" he probes.

"Maybe partly," she allows. "Though I don't think I quite realized how much of my fear was personal until you asked me about Justin at the wedding."

He isn't sure to say this last confession, knowing firsthand how thorough the fog of self-deception can be. Especially when it's paired with remarkable stubbornness.

She isn't sure what to make of his lack of reply this time, and pushing through the worry that her words have unleashed some new anger in him, she clings to the strength that she feels dwindling within her.

"I'm sorry I hurt you, Tom. I'm sorry that I made you feel that what he had. . . how much we loved each other didn't matter to me. I walked out because I was terrified, not because you weren't enough. Maybe it was that it was too much. . . "

She holds his gaze as she makes her apology. And when she finishes speaking, seeing her own pain echoed on his fair features, she thinks that no room, no two people, should be able to physically contain this much hurt.

He lets go of her hand, angling his body away from her and back to the bar, and abruptly she feels bereft at the loss of proximity.

"Loved?" he asks, and in a tone that betrays no emotion. "Your feelings for me are in the past tense?"

She closes her eyes at the question, thinking the confession he's demanding an impossible one for her to give. Remembering, too, his own confession in the mess hall, several months earlier; his admission that he still loved her paired with the desperate desire to banish her from his thoughts.

Standing on the precipice of her own hesitation, she decides that isn't possible for her to hurt anymore than she already does.

"Never past," she says, her voice breaking and her eyes remaining tightly shut. "I kept telling myself it would just take time. . . But months keep going by, and we've now been apart longer than we were together. And yet I still miss you so much that it hurts to look at you. I wake up in the middle of the night to reach for you, even though you haven't been next to me for a year."

She doesn't voice the thought that while sharing her life with someone who loved her so powerfully was a kind of salvation, living with this love that refuses to fade is her own personal damnation. But this, along with the feeling that it's a hell she thinks she deserves, is made clear by the tortured sound of her voice. The way the agony drips off of her, flowing as though it had never been hidden under a controlled façade.

Her eyes open in time to see him push back from the bar, the sound of the stool scraping on the floor echoing loudly in the empty room. She chokes back tears, fighting to inhale the oxygen that suddenly refuses to fill her lungs as recoils at the thought that he's leaving, after all she's said.

Her head is already spinning from panic when his arms go around her, and for a second she thinks that she's blacked out or hit her head. Certain that this feeling of him, pulling her flush against his torso as he soothes her, pressing kisses into her shoulder and her hair, must not be real.

When his lips make contact with the side of her neck, the intense spark of his flesh touching hers brings into focus every one of her senses. She leans into his touch, a quiet gasp escaping from her lips.

"How is it possible that touching you still feels this good?" he murmurs, kissing her neck again as she pushes up from her chair.

She's beyond the point of answering him, lost in the solid feel of his body and the very real scent of him that now mixes with the smell of salt water facsimile in her nostrils. And standing there, both of them unmoving for what seems like an hour, she thinks that she wants to stay just like this all night.

She changes her mind when his hands begin moving up and down her body, slowly, and the same way they traced the helm when _Voyager_'s repairs were completed. An intoxicating mix of reverence and familiarity, though neither one dampening his open desire.

"Oh, god," he gasps, when his hands slip underneath her shirt.

It's minutes later, when she's finally facing him and he has her pinned between the bar and his body, that rational thought returns to her in any measure.

"In the holodeck?" she asks, dragging her mouth away from his.

Something about the way she says it tells him it's not out of the question, and so he presses himself into her, nuzzling her face so that his mouth is directly over ear.

"I have fond memories of the pool table," he whispers huskily. "But I think we can make better ones."

Even as he feels the breath catching in the chest that heaves against his, she pushes against him until they're both shuffling toward the surface in question; their journey slow, distracted by the myriad of sensations they relish in as they make their way across the room.

. . . . .

Entering the holodeck, she is enveloped by sunshine; greenery and trees spreading out far as the eye can see. Yet, for all the splendor of the scenery, Kathryn's mood droops a little, the archway disappearing behind her.

She had been so excited when she found the PADD that Tom was working, months earlier. The part of the holocode she could actually read revealing a program of the Scottish Highlands. The river, barely visible from where she now stands, sprawling out majestically in her mind.

It was only upon the program's completion, Tom proudly leading her to the holodeck, that she realized the truth. Tom's newest passion is not Scotland, but golf. And all the breathtaking detail he rendered so beautifully of the blue Scottish sky, and everything that stretches below it, was for this.

A golf course.

As she approaches where Tom stands, judiciously choosing a driver from his bag, she tucks her hands into her leather jacket with an inward sigh. She promised him last month that she would more tolerant of his newest hobby, and coming into his line of sight, she swallows her nostalgia for the garage program. And even for Captain Proton.

"Hi, gorgeous," he smiles, pulling out his selected club. "How was your day?"

She mulls through her shift on the bridge, deliberately picking a topic that will hold his attention even here.

"Well, let's see," she begins, looking up at a passing holographic cloud, "I had some coffee. Read a few reports. . . Watched as your god-daughter threw up on my chair."

"In your quarters?" he asks, immediately freezing.

"_On the bridge_," she corrects, putting weight behind her words.

"What on earth was Miral doing on the bridge?" he exclaims, his current project momentarily forgotten.

"I told B'Elanna to report to me at once," she says ruefully.

"And she didn't tell you she had Miral?"

"She was in the turbolift when I commed. She tried to tell me, and I cut her off."

Her tone is one of both regret and dark humor, and Tom begins to laugh, picturing the engineer charging up to Deck One, child in tow.

"So she just went up there with Miral- reporting as ordered?"

"Yes," she confirms. "Only your god-daughter happened to be feeling ill, and long story short, she ended up vomiting on my chair. . . To B'Elanna's relief, I wasn't in it at the time."

Silently, Tom thinks that perhaps it was the opposite of relief B'Elanna felt over it being an empty chair; given that she'd just been summoned to the bridge while her child was sick. But he knows better than to voice this thought, staying safely on the sidelines of any minor scuffles that occur between the two women who remain as willful as they are close.

"Why is it," he says, now beginning to practice his swing, "that whenever Miral does something like take her first step or say her first word, she's _your _god-daughter? But when she does something like have a tantrum or, I don't know, throw up on the bridge, she's _my _god-daughter?"

Tom's challenging smile is quickly mirrored by Kathryn's. She rocks back on her heels for effect, squinting in the artificial sunlight.

"I think that answer is rather obvious, don't you?" she taunts, earning her a headshake from her lover.

As he returns his attention to club in his hand, Kathryn ticks away the moments as her patience begins to fizzle. This is the last hole in the Inverness course, and though not the most challenging (or so she's been informed by Tom), he's had a lot of trouble making it onto the green with his drive.

"Your father had lunch with my mother in Indiana last week," she informs him, her impatience getting the best of her as he continues swinging, but not hitting the ball.

"Yeah?" he asks, not looking up.

"Apparently they chatted for hours."

He chuckles at this before rehearsing the drive once more.

"You just know that they sat there planning a wedding," he remarks. "Picking out invitation styles and table linens."

At this, she pauses, looking at him with new interest.

"Do you want that?" she asks cautiously, and a smirk she doesn't see appears on his face.

"Table linens?" he queries innocently.

"A wedding," she corrects, sounding frustrated. He ceases his practice, leaning on the driver in his hands.

"I want to be married to you, if that's what you're asking. . . The wedding I could take or leave."

She smiles at him, shading her eyes from the sun with her hand.

"I'd want my family there. Yours, too," she says seriously, to which he shrugs.

"So we wait until we get home. It won't be much longer."

Despite that it's been ten years, they are all, more than ever, convinced that they'll get home soon. Starfleet continues to make technological advances every month. _Voyager_'s crew still looks, as they always have, for wormholes and spatial rifts that would shorten their journey.

Their goal, however, is no longer a desperate, all-consuming need. They are optimistic about the future, still longing for the friends and loved ones who await them in the Alpha Quadrant. But they do so while enjoying what they the lives and love they have around them. And for this lesson, they try to remain grateful. They could have drowned, they know, in their desire to get home; choking on the fear of losing what they had before. But instead, they find themselves floating in both the joy of what they have and the patient expectation of what awaits.

"My mother's a traditionalist," Kathryn declares, crossing her arms. "She's going to want me to wear one of those ridiculous dresses. You have to back me up when I refuse."

"That's fine," he agrees. "But I want an open bar."

"What is it with you and bars?" she teases, coming close to where he stands. "You don't even like them."

"You picked me up in a bar. Two bars, actually. . . So I tend to think they've been pretty good to me so far," he grins.

Her defiant expression remains, her hands moving to her hips.

"_One bar _I'm willing to say I proposition you in. And even then, it was a holographic one, and I'm pretty sure it was mutual. The first one on Letara- that one you picked _me _up in."

"Really? Because I'm pretty sure I remember you draping yourself over me before we left. "

"That was out of pity," she shakes her head. "Maybe even duty. Either way, it doesn't count."

It's the same argument they always have, only they never finish it.

"Besides," she continues, and despite the fact that he's smiling at her, "it was you who-"

Before she can finish her sentence, he kisses her. The sun shining down on them, and the sound of the river faint in the distance. When he pulls away from her, she can't remember what they were talking about.

"You should hurry up," she says, running her finger down his shirt suggestively. "The faster you finish this hole, the faster we can go home."

Hearing her voice drop an octave, he doesn't hesitate before lining up his drive again and swinging through to the ball.

When their eyes find the small white orb in the light of the afternoon, they see that he's hit a perfect drive. Straight and beautiful, and headed, as planned, toward the center of the green. Until a sudden gust of wind takes it, hooking it off course, directly into one of the course's water traps.

As Tom turns away with disappointment and Kathryn follows with stifled amusement, the ball lingers for a moment at the top of the water, before gliding gracefully down, into the depths beneath.

* * *

><p><strong><em>For Josephine. And Ilsa. And the woman waiting patiently for me on a porch, a glass of wine in hand. - C.<em>**


End file.
